


here comes the sun king

by cygnus (sunsprite)



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Childhood Friends, Fables - Freeform, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, M/M, Magic, Magic Realism, Mild Angst, Mystery, Small Towns, Urban Fantasy, chanlix if you squint real hard, hyunjin's just trying his best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27691712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsprite/pseuds/cygnus
Summary: “You would be the king of the fairy ring!” Jisung proclaimed as he swept his arms in a grand, wide arc. “The lover of the sun.”The sun was burning bright in the distance. Liquid gold collided with lilac mountains. Hyunjin stared at Jisung and the wondrous look in his eyes, and asked, “What about you, then? What would you be the king of?”Jisung shrugged. “Some princes don’t become kings.”(In which fairy rings brought nothing but bad luck, but not to Hyunjin. Instead, fairy rings brought him closer to a mysterious boy who burned like a thousand suns.)
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Hwang Hyunjin
Comments: 52
Kudos: 230





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so this au was originally written and published for another fandom (bts) but i took that one down since it didn't portray what i had in mind initially T_T so i rewrote it, improved it a lot since it was written almost 2 years ago, and it came out a lot better than before especially for hyunsung hehe,, i'm in the middle of writing chapter 2 so it shouldn't take too long to update!
> 
> this fic was inspired by _the house at the end of the lane_ by neil gaiman, this [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh4KGMmsywc), and _the velveteen rabbit_ by margery williams.
> 
> thank you for reading!! hope you enjoy <3

**I. SUMMER FEVER DREAM**

“ _Never step into a fairy ring_ ,” Granny had once said, “ _or else it will bring you bad luck_.”

Granny was an old spinster but Hyunjin knew to never question her wisdom. Ever since he could remember, Hyunjin had been told all his life that fairy rings brought nothing but misfortune. He was instructed to immediately evade them if he just so happened to stumble upon them. There were no known survivors among Moondew Valley who lived to tell the story of what catastrophes fairy rings entailed for the ignorant. 

At first, Hyunjin had been dubious like any other twelve year old who began to find skepticism in the fables that adults used to scare children into behaving, but he knew better than to doubt the words of Granny. She lived far longer than Hyunjin has and knew more than he could ever comprehend, and he’d always been a docile child, so Hyunjin did as he was told. 

But one day, when he found a boy sunbathing within a fairy ring beneath an old rowan tree, Hyunjin halted in his tracks behind the shrubs of rhododendrons, letting the four-leaf clovers he plucked out of boredom flutter to the ground between his fingers. 

The boy looked almost intangible; the outline of his figure was softened by the bright chords of sunlight. Above him, the sun hung like an opal stone speckled with gold, and for a moment, Hyunjin thought a trick had been played on his squinting eyes when he saw the sky waver -- like the boy who laid upon the earth was a magnet that lured in the rays of the sun. 

Hyunjin was seconds away from running back down the trail he had come from to return to the cottage, but seeing the stranger lay in the fairy ring so ignorantly left a ladder of goosebumps along his back. Hyunjin at least had Granny to tell him these things, but maybe the boy didn’t. Maybe the boy was like Changbin, who often fluctuated between living in the attic of the town’s church or in the basement of his foster folks. 

With a sudden sense of responsibility, but mostly out of an attempt at heroism, Hyunjin pivoted in his path and trekked towards the boy instead. He kept his distance from the fairy ring and called out, “Hey! You’re not supposed to be in there!”

The boy snapped his head over at Hyunjin. He looked young, with his baby cheeks and eyes resembling that of an innocent lamb. “Huh? Be in what?”

“In the fairy rings,” Hyunjin elaborated with a frown. “You should know they bring bad luck! Danger, even. No one ever comes back from a fairy ring. Something always happens to them, so you should get out of it before bad luck gets to you too.”

The boy guffawed. He sat up from his lounge with blades of grass stuck in the tufts of his dark hair and asked incredulously, “Now, who told you that lie?”

Hyunjin blinked. He expected more of a terrified reaction that an amused one. Something about the boy was definitely not right. “It’s not a lie. My granny doesn’t lie, so _you’re_ the one who’s lying.”

“Am not!”

“Am too!”

The boy clicked his tongue and shook his head in resignation. He crossed his legs in the fairy ring and folded his arms against his chest. His eyes glowed the colour of topazes against the sun. “Moondew has it all wrong. Fairy rings aren’t evil. They’re _magical_.”

“Magical?” Hyunjin eyed the ring of mushrooms suspiciously. 

“Mhm. It’s obvious, don’t you think? It’s all in the name. _This_ is where the fairies live. I was waiting for them, but now I don’t think they’re gonna come anymore because you interrupted me. They don’t like intruders.” The boy sulked. “Thanks a lot, by the way.”

Hyunjin might have felt an inkling of guilt if he weren’t too hung up on the fact that the boy was talking about _creatures_ of all things. God, he should’ve booked it home the moment he saw him. “Are you crazy? Fairies don’t exist.”

“They do! And I can prove it to you,” he said, patting the space between him. “The fairies do like extra company. Maybe they’ll change their mind!”

“You want me to come in _there_?”

“Of course. Where else?”

Hyunjin promptly declined by sitting down on the grass outside of the fairy ring. “No! I rather live the rest of my life happily and full of luck!”

The boy frowned, but then his eyes zeroed in on the object in his hands. He pointed at it and asked, “What’s that?”

Hyunjin blinked down at the four-leaf clovers he still had in his hand. Most of them had flown away when he loosened his grip on them earlier prior to approaching the boy, but some of them still stuck to the balminess of his palm. “They’re four-leaf clovers. You -- you don’t know about them?” When the boy shook his head, Hyunjin lifted one up for him to see it clearly. “They’re super rare and supposed to bring good luck.”

“Perfect!” The boy exclaimed. “Then they can defend you against the 'bad luck', right? That means you’ll be fine even if you step in. Now, if I’m gonna prove to you that they exist, you’re gonna have to sit here beside me.”

“Um. I don’t know -- “

He said in a sing-song voice, “The fairies are waiting!”

Hyunjin hesitated for a moment. The kid was nuts. He _had_ to be. Hyunjin’s never saw him before either, which was strange, because Moondew Valley was barely populated and everyone knew each other. Even the people from the neighbouring seaside town knew everybody that inhabited Moondew. 

But past all the eccentricity, there was something familiar about the boy. Hyunjin couldn’t quite place why or what it was. Though his mind was against stepping into the fairy ring, his heart was being pulled towards it, and Hyunjin couldn’t ignore the nimbus-like gravitation. 

Hyunjin looked down at the four-leaf clovers in his hands. Taking a deep inhale, he slowly approached the fairy ring, eyeing the arc of mushrooms dubiously before taking a hesitant step in. Nothing changed. The air, the sky, the sun -- everything remained the same. 

“See?’ The boy snickered as he patted at the space between him for Hyunjin to sit. “Moondew’s been feeding you a bunch of false truths.” 

“Where are the fairies?” Hyunjin frowned, looking around. 

“We have to wait! They show up at a certain time when the sky collides with the earth.”

Hyunjin slanted him a puzzled look. He finally took a seat beside the boy and crossed his legs. Their knees bumped together. “You don’t look that much younger than me, but you sound really smart. Do you go to a special school?”

He blinked. “School?”

“Aw man, _please_ tell me you know what that is too.”

“Oh. Oh. Yes, school! Of course I have school, but I’m homeschooled,” he said with a vehement nod before sticking his hand out. “I’m Jisung. I live at the end of the lane with my papa. We run the Han’s farm.” 

Hyunjin had never heard of the Han’s farm. He didn’t even know such a family farm existed. The only families in Moondew he was most acquainted with that ran farms were the Kim’s and Yang’s. He frowned, confused, but decided to forgo the questioning. His eyes flickered down to Jisung’s extended hand and he sheepishly shook it. “I’m Hyunjin.” 

“It’s nice to meet you, Hyunjin. Isn’t it super cool that our first memory together will be with the fairies?”

“I guess so,” he said with half the excitement as Jisung had. Then, he glanced down at the clovers still sticking to his hands and an idea sprung into his head. “Hey, um. I actually have a curfew, so I can’t stay too long, but maybe we can use these as an offering for the fairies so they’ll show up faster. Would that work?” _Enticement_ , his granny had once said to him, when she put out a dish of milk for the stray black cat that often visited their cottage.

Jisung beamed, the stars in his eyes progressively becoming larger by the second. “I never thought about that before. That’s actually a good idea. Fairies can be a little greedy so I bet they’ll appreciate it!” 

He sounded so genuinely in awe that it had Hyunjin feel embarrassed. He placed the bundle of clovers down and spread them around the ring of mushrooms, making sure to distribute them evenly. Afterwards, once they were done, they laid down on the grass and waited patiently for the fairies.

They lounged beneath the sun’s smile, half shielded by the large tapestry of shrubs twined with vermillion berries from the rowan tree that protected their eyes. The grass underneath him felt cool and prickly, and Hyunjin could have fallen asleep from the cozy warmth the sun brought upon them if it weren’t for Jisung being a chatterbox.

Hyunjin listened to him talk about all sorts of things: first, of his age (they were the same age) and then mainly of the fairies -- debunking the popular belief of how they were altruistic beings when, in reality, they were gnarly and vicious. They were like flies, but tinier and gold and deposited dust everywhere they went. But most importantly, they were loyal companions to the sun.

However, Hyunjin was finally lulled to sleep by Jisung’s voice at some point of their conversation. He’d woken up blearily to a sky that was all pink and blues, cascading into a coral red faraway in the horizon where the yolk-like sun was slowly descending behind the rolling hills. Realization dawned on him and Hyunjin sat up, eyes wide.

“Oh hiya, you’re awake now,” Jisung greeted cheerfully with a smile as he plucked the twig out of Hyunjin’s hair. They were still side by side in the fairy ring. The setting sun’s warm hues licked across his freckled face, making the rings in his eyes flicker like the goldenrod flowers his granny kept in their garden.

“Did I -- how long was I out?”

“I dunno. Maybe a few hours? You missed the fairies, by the way,” Jisung sighed, patting Hyunjin on the shoulder as consolation. “I didn’t wake you up because you were sleeping like a baby. I must have put you to sleep with all my talking, huh?”

“No!” he exclaimed, shaking his head. A leaf fell onto his shoulder and he flicked it away. “I liked hearing you talk. I just have trouble sleeping at night so I’m always tired.”

Jisung blinked. “Oh. Okay.”

“I’m sorry I fell asleep,” he said sheepishly, and noticed how the four-leaf clovers were all gone. “But next time I promise I won’t fall asleep. I’ll even hunt down more clovers too so we can offer them to the fairies. I still need to see them with my own eyes to believe in them, after all.”

“Whoa. _Really_?” 

“Really.” Hyunjin nodded as confirmation. He grinned as Jisung whooped in enthusiasm, and they locked pinky fingers to seal the deal.

They parted ways at the forked path. Jisung went off towards the end of the lane while Hyunjin passed by Seungmin’s house, greeting the younger boy with a shout. Seungmin sprung from the porch of his bungalow house and waved at him until Hyunjin feared his shoulder would pop out of place.

Hyunjin liked going to the Kim’s house. They were a small but rowdy family and Hyunjin always felt welcomed and accepted into their home. Hyunjin’s cottage house was too quiet, and sometimes, he felt a little lonely.

Granny was the quiet type. She preferred to knit, read, collect fine china, and decorate the cottage with indoor plants that made Hyunjin grow used to the earthy scent always permeating the halls. Rather than socialize with the rest of the folks in all of Moondew, she’d listen to Chopin’s Nocturnes on her old gramophone, and the both of them would solve large puzzles together on the large rug resembling blue and white pottery. 

But Hyunjin supposed he didn’t mind, in the end. Her quiet affection made Hyunjin feel warm too.

Later that night, Hyunjin went to bed with his head in a pool of moonlight. He didn’t sleep until the sun began to rise, and he dreamt of a memory that unraveled an overwhelming sense of misplaced familiarity.

Playground shenanigans were orbiting around him. Kids were building castles in the sand box with lime green buckets and a pail of water they’ve fetched from a nearby water fountain. A circuit of laughter rang in an exchange of hide-and-seek, and then there was the wailing of a child who’d fallen during a game of hopscotch. But in the midst of all the chaos, Hyunjin had noticed a boy on the swings, fervently swinging back and forth in accordance with his kicking legs.

Hyunjin was curious, because he swung high and fast, relentless and free, as though he was aiming for the sky.

He went down the slide, feet hitting the sand that molded beneath his feet as he stood up. The sun in the distance seemed to have risen higher, hotter, and heavier on his back. When Hyunjin stopped in the middle of his short journey, the boy met Hyunjin’s eyes -- dark and familiar but bright like river gold.

The boy swung higher until he merged with the sun that burned behind him. Hyunjin squinted against the harsh sunlight, but for a second that he was able to witness, Hyunjin swore that the boy and the sun had become one. His figure melted into the centerpiece of the burning star as though he was made to belong there. 

But then the swing came back down and he was no longer there.

Hyunjin opened his eyes to the early skylight spilling softly into his room. He rubbed at the crusts of his eyes and slowly sat up. It was a strange and fuzzy dream, and the details were beginning to ebb into forgetfulness, but he knew one thing for certain.

The boy who’d been swallowed whole by the sun, was Jisung.

🌣 

It became an unspoken routine, after, to hunt down four-leaf clovers and meet Jisung at the fairy ring everyday.

Hyunjin would wake up at six in the morning and lend a hand in preparing breakfast and lunch. Depending on the day’s menu, there would be freshly made scones with apricot jam gifted by the Kim’s. Cubes of sugar and cream in the teas. Then, lunch would be something light, like an easy combo of club sandwiches or congee with youtiao. Afterwards, they would make blancmange and put it in the freezer to cool so that they could eat it in the evening, and Hyunjin would be shooed off when his Granny began to make her famous sweet rice dessert. 

He would spend the next hour tending the garden in the back of their cottage. His granny grew an assortment of vibrant flowers, as well as fruits and vegetables that curled vines over the wooden support blocks he’d assembled to keep them upright. He’d sip on the pink lemonade his granny made as a refreshment, and at noon, his granny went to town for groceries and bargain-priced vegetables at the market. She always brought back an abundance of unusual spices and herbs, but Hyunjin never knew what they were for.

Once he was done with all his chores, Hyunjin would go on his journey to collect four-leaf clovers around the fields. He walked past their shed where they kept their gardening tools, and past the Yang’s where he saw the only son smudge dirt onto his cheeks by accident. Hyunjin waved at him, and Jeongin waved back with an oblong grin. 

The sunlight was more powerful as the season deepened, drying up the air. His eyes travelled across the grass, tip toeing into his neighbour’s property in order to scope for any four-leaf clovers. He climbed over the fences of the Jeon farm, getting distracted by watching them groom the animals. He saw Mr. Jeon brush the fine hairs of the horse by the stables and his oldest son was carrying stainless steel milk cans from the barn.

Hyunjin went on his merry way back to the tarmac road. He collected as many clovers as he could before he arrived at the meadows, eyes tracing the large entity of the billowing rowan tree. He spotted Jisung sitting within the fairy ring with his head tilted skyward and his eyes closed. He donned denim overalls that looked too big for his thin frame; the sleeves of his plaid shirt still drooped despite being rolled up to the elbows.

He perked up at the sound of footsteps. Jisung looked up at Hyunjin with a warm, broad smile, and exclaimed, “You’re here!”

“I really hope you’re wearing a lot of sunscreen,” Hyunjin said as a greeting, sitting down beside him and spreading the four-leaf clovers around the arc of red-capped mushrooms. It was muscle memory, at this point.

“What? Sunscreen?”

“Yeah, like. SPF? You know, to protect your skin from the sun?”

Jisung narrowed his eyes and hummed. “What an odd creation.”

There were times Jisung spoke with an oddly urbane parlance that Hyunjin debated whether or not to dig at. He was younger in all physical aspects, but there seemed to be an old soul stuck inside of him. Or maybe he was just really, really smart and weird. 

But then again, that was how people viewed Hyunjin in school, too. He should know better than to judge someone’s way of speaking when he was subject to that by his classmates. 

Frowning, he shook the thoughts away, and asked, “So are we gonna see the fairies today? We’ve been doing this for almost a week and they’ve never showed up. I’m starting to think they’re not even real at all.”

“Hey, you gotta believe in them in order to see them!” Jisung nudged him with an arm. “Keep your faith in them big and strong and they’ll show up for sure. They should be here during the golden hour.”

“Really?” Hyunjin eyed him, doubtful.

“ _Trust_ me.” A pause. “Bro.”

Hyunjin snorted and covered his mouth. Jisung blinked at him. Hyunjin could feel his chest hurt from holding in his laughter, before he finally gave in and started giggling into arms. “Okay, _bro_.” 

Jisung looked confused but he joined in anyway, and they laid there laughing together underneath the rowan tree with dappled sunlight prancing across the grass. After their laughter died down, Hyunjin picked at the grass cushioned beneath them. 

“You should come over sometime, if you want,” Hyunjin offered quietly. His heart was pounding in his ears. “My granny makes some kickass porridge. We eat it with blackberry jam all the time and it’s _really_ good. I -- we have a garden too, if you like flowers. But I think everyone likes flowers. My granny grew a big squash and showed it off to our neighbours the other day. It was huge. Jeongin didn’t like it though. He ran away from me when I chased him with it. Um. What was I saying again?”

Jisung looked pleased at the idea and unfazed at his rambling. “Whoa, I'd love to come. I’ve never been to someone else’s house before! Would your parents mind, though?”

“Oh, I don’t have any,” Hyunjin said casually. “I’ve been living with my granny for as long as I can remember. She said she found me all alone in a forest one day as a wee little baby, all wrapped up in a blanket while bawling my eyes off. I think it’s ‘cause I pooped my pants. I wasn’t even wearing a _diaper_.” He shuddered.

“What an odd way to give up a baby,” Jisung said with a frown.

Hyunjin couldn’t help but laugh. 

They were quiet for a moment. Hyunjin turned to look at Jisung, who was looking up at the sky through the gaps of the tapering leaves hanging above them. “How about you? You said you run a farm with your dad, right?”

Jisung hummed. His eyes wandered to the side. “Yeah, just me and papa. He works as a fishmonger in town, too.”

“Really? How can just the two of you manage a farm? That’s so much work.”

“We have help.” Jisung was plucking at a purple coneflower and twisting its stem. He doesn’t give Hyunjin another chance to answer when he gasps out loud. “Hey! Why don’t we make flower crowns?”

Jisung didn’t seem to want to talk about it, so Hyunjin shook away the urge to pry. Off to another task, Hyunjin picked at a variety of wildflowers he could find within the vicinity without having his whole body out of the fairy ring. Most of the flowers he found were black-eyed Susans and cornflowers, although he noticed a summer’s pheasant-eye near the trunk base of the rowan tree. It was mostly Jisung doing the making while Hyunjin did the collecting.

He piled them all together for Jisung as he intertwined the vines. It was a flimsy little thing, slightly wilted from the lack of sturdiness in its structure, but the dainty flowers that filled the spaces in between rendered it a delicate headpiece.

“Uhh. Wait, not on me!” Hyunjin leaned back when Jisung reached out towards him with the flower crown in hand. “I don’t think I should really wear that.”  
“What? Why not?”

Hyunjin shrunk a bit, fiddling with the blades of grass. “It -- I don’t know. It probably wouldn’t suit me? I mean, all the boys in my school are always saying how these things are for girls only and I -- you know. I shouldn’t do it or else they’ll --”

“What?” Jisung squawked in disbelief. “That’s a bunch of crockshit!”

Hyunjin pointed at him, agape. “You swore.”

“Who cares!”

“I do!” Hyunjin huffed. “I’m older than you! I’m supposed to say crockshit. Where’d you learn to say that anyways?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter.” Jisung waved at it dismissively. “What’s so girly about a flower crown? Flower crowns are pretty and _you’re_ pretty! Put two and two together and you get the prettiest thing in the world, so what’s the problem?”

Hyunjin blinked. It took a moment for Hyunjin to fully wrap his head around the fact that Jisung had called him pretty of all things. He’d never been called pretty before. Embarrassed, his face grew hot and he felt like he was a piece of wheat bread being toasted into oblivion.

“You’re prettier,” he blurted. 

“Stop that.” Jisung shoved at his shoulder. “Accept it, Hyunjin. You’re pretty and those boys are just jealous. I mean, look at your little dots.” He reached forward to gently poke at the mole underneath his eye and the one on his cheek. “They’re so cool! Like stars in a peach sky.”

Hyunjin groaned and covered his face. Compliments were always a weird and uncomfortable thing for him. He never knew how to react to them. But when he felt something drop on the top of his head, he peeked through his fingers to find Jisung grinning at him with arms akimbo. Hyunjin gently touched at the petals of the wildflowers that had been braided into a crown. 

“There you go,” Jisung said with a proud look on his face. “A king ready for his throne!”

Hyunjin screwed his face up in confusion. “A king? But what would I be the king of?”

“You would be the king of the fairy ring!” Jisung proclaimed as he swept his arms in a grand, wide arc. “The lover of the sun.”

The sun was burning bright in the distance. Liquid gold collided with lilac mountains. Hyunjin stared at Jisung and the wondrous look in his eyes, and asked, “What about you, then? What would you be the king of?”

Jisung shrugged. “Some princes don’t become kings.”

“You could be mine,” Hyunjin rushed out, then waved his hands frantically at his slip. “I mean -- my _king_. You could be my king. We’d be kings together. That’d be pretty neat, wouldn’t it?”

Jisung blinked in mild surprise. He was looking at Hyunjin as though he was a different person, as though he saw him as someone else. But there was fondness in the smooth laugh lines of his face, round cheeks tinted a dusty pink that resembled the blushing hues of the sky.

“Okay,” Jisung said, smiling, “I’ll be your king.”

Soft, orange light scattered across the sky, illuminating their faces in the shape of an hourglass. It looked like a landscape right out of an oil painting, and at that very moment, Hyunjin felt calm and unbothered, detached from his problems as though it had been plucked right out of his psyche and was left hanging in the air.  
Hyunjin closed his eyes and listened to his breathing, and Jisung’s breathing -- the gentle rise and fall of their chests in tandem. The grass underneath him brushed against his skin, making him itch.

And then something brushed against his cheek -- soft and willowy, like a butterfly’s wing. And again, it fluttered against his cheek, down to his jaw, then around his ear.

“Hyunjin.”

Hyunjin opened his eyes, and his breath hitched. He stared at this -- this _thing_ , this tiny little thing that was floating in the space between his crossed eyes. The tiny, winged creature was glowing and scattering gold dust after its wake whenever its wings fluttered gently in the air. Hyunjin couldn’t make out the details of it for it was too small, but it was real, and it was right in front of him looking like the size of his fingernail.

He realized there were more than just one. Hyunjin looked around slowly, finding a few, glowing creatures flying around him. They were like fireflies that shimmered stardust. They were humming, too -- a meld of dulcet, unfamiliar sounds, or voices, that sounded almost digital and far away from his ears. It reminded Hyunjin of those mystical narrators of a fantasy game.

“They’re real,” Hyunjin whispered, staring at Jisung in awe who was full-on grinning at him with a fairy perched on his nose. _You’re real_.

“Told you,” Jisung chuckled, then winced as he flicked the fairy on his nose off. The fairy flitted away in a parabolic curve. “Ow! You kicked me.” He aggressively motioned at the winged creatures. “See what I mean? They may look like they’re innocent but they’re totally vicious.”

“Well, _I_ think they’re nice.” Hyunjin didn’t exactly see the viciousness. The fairies flew around him and left behind a gentle whorl of wind that tickled his face. He felt himself smiling as a fairy pranced around in the air in front of him, and another one played with the curls of his hair. “But, um. Why are they all coming to me?”

All of the fairies had fluttered towards Hyunjin. He was completely surrounded by fairies while Jisung was left all alone. A mountain of plaited voices grew demandingly in his ears, becoming more jarring than pleasant, and he was half-tempted to cover his ears when he caught the bewildered look across Jisung’s face. His eyes were wide, unreadable, mouth hung agape.

And then a simple: “Oh.”

“Oh? What _oh_?” Hyunjin frowned as the voices grew louder and harsher. Hyunjin swatted the fairies away, but golden dust fell onto his clothes and he hurriedly swept them away, only to have his hands become swathed in them. “Jisung?”

“We have to leave.” Jisung snatched Hyunjin by the wrist and frantically dragged him out of the fairy ring. As soon as they stepped out of the circle, the waterfall of magical voices dispersed into the calm silence of the countryside. The fairies were gone. The sun had set, leaving behind a belt of venus to set aglow in the sky. Hyunjin looked down at his hands, blinked, and the golden dust was gone, as though nothing had happened. His clothes were fairy-dust free.

“What was that all about?” Hyunjin asked, looking at Jisung, but Jisung was already looking far away. His eyes had glazed over. “Are you okay, Jisung?”

He let go of Hyunjin’s wrist. Shadows fell upon his face. “I -- I have to leave. I, um. I have to leave. I’m sorry. I just remembered that papa is going to take me to town with him tomorrow and stay at an inn there, so I won’t be here for a bit. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I’ll find you when I return, okay?”

“Okay,” Hyunjin said quietly, slowly, caught off guard at the late notice. He couldn’t judge, though. Hyunjin was pretty forgetful too. “But you look really pale. I can take you back to my place. Granny has some remedies you could take to feel better. Are you -- “

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me! But I have to go now. I’ll see you soon, Hyunjin.” Jisung gave him a quick wave. Before Hyunjin could return the gesture, Jisung had already sprinted off down the lane. He didn’t know if it was the sun playing tricks on him, but the hazy glow of the sunset seemed to have wrapped Jisung up in a halo, making him seem transparent and almost ghost-like. 

Hyunjin wasn’t sure what to think of what happened. It had been fun but then it had taken an unexpected solemn turn. The fairies acted weird too, but the fact that fairies truly existed left Hyunjin buzzing with leftover energy and astonishment as he walked back home, his flower crown in hand.

His granny seemed surprised at his glowing expression, but her lips curled into a gentle smile as she set the dinner table with food. Once Hyunjin got washed up and had placed the flower crown in his room up on his shelf, they had honey-glazed potatoes and braised peas alongside steamed rice. Then, they had sweet blancmange with raspberries for dessert. 

Hyunjin was sure that if he were to mention fairies, his granny would absolutely be livid. She’d probably backhand him across the head and he wouldn’t hear the end of it for the night. So, he opted to ask her a question that's been in the back of his mind. “Granny, do you know about the Han family?”

She looked up at him from her plate, narrowing her eyes. “The who, now?”

“The _Han’s_ ,” Hyunjin repeated.

“The Han’s?”

“Yeah! Like, the family that lives at the end of the lane? They own a farm. I mean, it’s just father and son, but they have help managing it.”

“Have you been up late reading too many novels again?” His grandma sighed. “I swear, you and your imagination be makin’ up the strangest of things. Nobody lives at the end of the lane anymore, boy. It’s abandoned property. No one has set a foot down on that land since the year of nineteen fifty.”

Something heavy stuck in his chest. “I -- what?” 

That had to be a mistake. Jisung wouldn’t lie to him. He didn’t lie about the fairies, so he wouldn’t lie to Hyunjin about his family and where he lived, would he? Hyunjin wished he could march right down to the end of the lane to make sure everything was real, that he wasn’t being lied to, but he was tied down by a curfew and Jisung was gone for an unknown amount of time. 

Or maybe that was a lie too.

“Close your mouth or else all the flies will end up flying down your throat,” his grandma tapped his jaw and he immediately closed his mouth. She resumed back to her dessert, leaving Hyunjin baffled in his seat. He didn’t want to waste the food, so he managed to finish the blancmange despite having lost his appetite.

He retired to bed later that night. Sleepless nights come and go incessantly, so he often stayed up late underneath the blanket with a book in hand. It was only when the sun began to rise did Hyunjin find his eyes became heavy. 

However, as he leaned his back against the wall by his bed and stared out the window, he watched the stars laid out like tessellations across the night sky flicker like a dim flame of a candle, burning until there was nothing left.

🌣 

Changbin was a friend from school, but they didn’t grow close until Hyunjin witnessed him getting locked out of the basement of his house. Hyunjin never pried and only offered him a home to stay in so he had more options to choose from other than the church attic.

Changbin looked broody and small, but he was one of the nicest kids Hyunjin has ever met. There was a healing cut across his nose plastered with a teddy bear bandage, but that was from falling off of his bike and not out of a fight -- contrary to most of Moondew’s belief. He was only a year older but he was smarter than any other thirteen year old, which was why he decided to confide in him about Jisung when Changbin came by to visit the cottage with a bag full of candy. 

“Jisung?” Changbin frowned, rolling the lollipop around in his mouth. “Never heard of him.”

“Not even around town?”

“Nuh-uh. Everyone’s too busy preparing for the upcoming farmer’s market so I haven’t heard any new gossip. I saw Seungmin running around town square with a bag full of apples when I was looking out the window yesterday. Has anyone ever told him he really looks like a puppy?” He puffed up his cheeks and pried his eyes open wider to mimic doe eyes. “Like, his face just _does_ that.”

“Yeah, I do,” Hyunjin mumbled, more so distracted by the fact no one but Hyunjin knew Jisung. “Do you think I’m just going crazy?”

Changbin sighed. He threw an arm around his shoulder and knocked their heads together. “I know crazy, Hyunjinie. I know it very well. In fact, I live with crazy half of the time, and I can tell you with full confidence that you are not crazy.”

Hyunjin looked up at Changbin and the steadfast belief in his eyes. Hyunjin sniffled and ducked his head down. “Thanks.”

“Mhm.” He popped the lollipop out of his mouth. “I mean, I think I can understand this Jisung of yours. I don’t like telling people where I live because it’s kinda embarrassing. Maybe it’s the same for him too, you know, or maybe he feels pressured to not say anything about home. Parents, you know? Okay, maybe you don’t -- sorry -- but like. You know. _Parents_.” 

Hyunjin nodded, patting him on the arm. “No offense taken. But I think you’re right. I should just be supportive and loyal and then he’ll become comfy enough to tell me things. I should respect his privacy!” 

“Exactly. There ya go.”

“Thanks, Binnie,” Hyunjin said, grinning ear-to-ear. “Wanna go catch grasshoppers, now? You can sleepover too. Granny might need some extra hands to do the dishes.”

Changbin pointed at him with his lollipop, a twinkle in his eye. “Thought you’d never ask.”

Time passed and dissolved into a formless shape like the rain. Jisung had been gone for almost three weeks now, but Hyunjin tried not to worry. He went through his usual routine everyday and focused more on school while trying to ignore the boys in his grade. He bought a bunch of secondhand books at the town’s bookstore after he saved up enough money to splurge. He caught grasshoppers and chased dragonflies with Changbin and Seungmin and, at times, with Jeongin if he wasn't busy on the farm. 

Most of the time, though, when Hyunjin was alone, he’d linger by the fairy ring and wait until the sun skimmed the earth. He waited until he had only five minutes left before his curfew, hoping Jisung would show up. And everyday he’d trudge home from the fairy ring feeling a bit lonelier than before.

Another week passed. Jisung didn’t return yet.

One day, his grandmother had taken him to a sunflower maze managed by the Lee’s so she could exchange herbs and oils with the family. Hiding behind the legs of Mr. Lee whose face was obscured by a baseball cap was their filial son, Minho. 

Hyunjin never talked to him before. He’d never seen him around Moondew other than in the walls of his home. Granny had talked a bit about Minho -- how he was just two years older and was homeschooled by his mother who moonlighted as a kindergarten teacher when she wasn’t managing the maze. Granny had called him a shy little thing, but when he looked into Minho’s unwavering gaze as he walked past his house, Hyunjin might have thought otherwise. 

While Granny did her usual bargaining thing with the Lee family, Hyunjin went to the maze. Sweat rolled down his forehead in the sweltering heat, his hair feeling sticky underneath his straw hat. No matter how little he wore, it did nothing to help him from the humidity, but Hyunjin supposed the maze proved to be useful; the sunflowers, towering in its vibrant beauty, had cast canopies of shade over him.

The plains were bathed in brilliant sunlight, white and pink clover on the hills, and he weaved through the path. It was a quiet afternoon and realized there was no one else visiting the maze. Hyunjin was the only one here.

The maze seemed like something Jisung would like.

Hyunjin wasn’t sure if it was the summer heat playing games on him, but he noticed something in the corner of his eye. Something rustled and Hyunjin whirled around. He caught the shift of the sturdy stalks and something -- _someone_ \-- with a head of brown disappeared through the crowded bed of sunflowers off trail. Hyunjin blinked and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands. He wished there were people with him he could ask for confirmation that what he just saw was real. 

Curiosity churned in his chest -- the same kind of curiosity that once kindled on a midsummer day when he saw a lone boy lying within a fairy ring.  


Abandoning his hesitation, Hyunjin stepped over the hedge that divided the sunflowers away from the maze’s pathway. He barged through the stalks of sunflowers in pursuit of the mystery person, carefully pushing aside the sunflowers to allow room for him to pass through. He hadn’t realized how difficult this would be until a sunflower smacked him right in the face.

“Pfft -- _ow_ , geez! Why can’t I be as tall as these sunflowers?” Hyunjin whined as he frantically swatted at his face and his shoulders in fear that bugs might have fallen on him. But then he heard something airy and light to his far left -- a giggle. Hyunjin faltered in his next step.  


"Hello?” he tentatively called out.

There was only more rustling. Hyunjin followed the sudden sound of footsteps that appeared near his perimeter. He listened to the other bodily presence among the sibilant buzzing of cicadas and bees. Maybe there had been something odd in the pink lemonade his grandma had made for him in the morning, or maybe he failed to get enough sleep, always turning and writhing around in the dead of the night.

 _Maybe_ , Hyunjin thought to himself as his legs took him to the beam of light that peeked between the stalks when he finally reached the end of the league of sunflowers. He pushed past them and squeezed his eyes shut at the sudden swarm of light that overwhelmed him. _It’s the heat causing illusions for me._

Maybe it’s --

“You found me,” a voice said.

Hyunjin blinked.

He was no longer in the plains. He found himself in a copper wheat field that reached slightly past his waist. Confused, Hyunjin looked behind him where the maze of sunflowers still stood tall and strong -- yet now, they looked more like a towering wall that stretched infinitely across the distance as though they separated two realms.

He looked back to the front. There was a barn in the distance that Hyunjin had never seen before. A small river along the path of hedgerows flowed all the way through a timberland. It felt like he’d been struck in the head and was dragged into a dream. 

“Hyunjin,” the same voice said. 

Hyunjin turned around until he came face to face with the boy suddenly standing in front of him. He was enveloped by a sundance; his entire body shimmered with gold dust that fell from his shoulders like sand that got caught between the fabrics of his clothes.

In the distance, the sundogs wavered.

“Jisung?” Hyunjin squeaked. 

Jisung grinned, wide and sweet. “I told you I’d find you, didn’t I?”

“I -- what? Where are we? Why are you here? What happened? I was in the maze and then suddenly I’m -- _here_. What -- when did you even come back? You didn’t tell me you were back! Can you tell me what this place is now? Is this like the whole magic thingy you do with the fairies and stuff?”

“You ask so many questions,” Jisung sighed. He approached Hyunjin until their toes touched and lifted up a hand between them. “Here, I’ll show you.”

Hyunjin darted his eyes between his face and his offered hand. He looked up at the sky and the barn and the sunflowers. “I’m getting scared. This doesn’t feel real. _You_ don’t feel --”

“No, you can’t do that!” Jisung interrupted him almost frantically. “You can’t say that. Please. You have to believe in me. I’ll show you that this is real if you just take my hand. ”

Hyunjin swallowed. He supposed when it came to Jisung, he could always suspend his disbelief. So, he took Jisung’s hand, and tried not to yell when Jisung immediately dragged him down the hill. His hand was warm and soft compared to Hyunjin’s that was sweaty and balmy. 

They ran through the copper field as the wind billowed past them. He let Jisung take him through the tall grass that brushed past his skin and left behind an unearthly tingling. There were so many questions he itched to ask, but Hyunjin stuffed the urge down to laugh with Jisung as they danced and pranced around the field with arms opened wide for the sun.

The field seemed eternal when they finally laid down to catch their breaths. They marvelled up at the vanilla sky that reminded Hyunjin of a Claude Monet painting.  
Panting, Hyunjin turned his head to look at Jisung, and asked, “Can you tell me what you were doing in town, at least? With your dad?”

“Oh. Papa just went to meet up with some old friends at the saloon that were staying for a few days. My clothes still smell like brine from how we were always near the ocean.” Jisung kept his eyes on the sky, the sunlight blurring his features for a moment.

“Oh. Okay,” he said. He pursed his lips and inhaled a quivering breath of courage. “Then, um. Can I ask why you’re here? I mean -- like, in Moondew. Why not live in the city, or in the actual town?”

“Papa wanted to live in town, but I didn’t. I wanted to live here because I was looking for someone.”

Hyunjin bit his lip, wondering if he should bring up what his granny had said the other day. The house at the end of the lane had been abandoned for a long time. But Hyunjin couldn’t, he _can’t_ , so he pressed on in the same direction of the conversation: “Who were you looking for?”

“An old friend.”

“Did you find them?”

Jisung smiled a bit. It was a small, wistful curve to the edge of his mouth. “Yup, I did. But they don’t remember me anymore.”

“Oh.” Hyunjin looked up at the sky, guilty to have pried. “I’m sorry.”

“What’re you apologizing for? It’s not like it’s your fault!” Jisung waved it off, a big grin back on his face. “It’s not like I can do anything about it. I have to let the universe play out the nature of our fate! Even if they don’t remember me, I’m just happy I found them and that I’m able to be near them. I think that’s enough.”  


Hyunjin wondered who his old friend was. Jisung spoke so fondly about them that it shouldn’t have made his heart feel so heavy.

He was startled out of his own thoughts when Jisung jumped right back up to his feet, helping Hyunjin up as well. “Alrighty, let’s continue our adventure!”

After lounging among the bed of tall wheats under the three suns, they ran all the way into the timberlands, skipping over the stones that sat between the rivers as they reached the other side, weaving through the gargantuan trees of yesteryear that stood mute in the summer air. The ground beneath him was lumpy with soil and spongy moss and ancient roots, twisting like snakes that turned to stone. 

Jisung grabbed his hand and followed an illuminated path of white and gold that led them to an uncharacteristically large laburnum tree with yellow, silky blossoms that glowed in the heart of the woods.

Hyunjin stared up at it in awe. He could hear a magpie’s song in the distance. Bees zipped around the golden chain tree. With the susurration of the flowing river, the smell of damp moss and crushed leaves, Hyunjin gathered a flimsy bout of courage to muster up the words that have been sitting in the back of his throat for far too long.

“Jisung.” Hyunjin managed to say in between heavy breaths as they stopped before a wooden bridge that was beside the golden chain tree. Jisung turned around and the sunlight hit the side of his face in a hazy glow. “I think I’ve seen you before.”

“You have?”

“We were at the playground. And -- and you just vanished,” Hyunjin said, wringing his hands nervously. “I thought maybe I was imagining things, but you showed up again, and I knew you were real. You’re -- you’re really real, even if it’s hard to believe you are, sometimes.”

Jisung smiled thinly. “I’m real if you believe I’m real.”

“Where did you go that day, Jisung? From the swings -- where did you go?”

“I told you. I was looking for someone.”

Hyunjin stared at him, more perplexed than before. “That doesn’t make any sense. You -- _disappeared_. Nobody just disappears like that.”  


“Everyone disappears at some point, Hyunjin.” Jisung bent down to pluck something out from the ground. Then, he circles a hand over Hyunjin’s wrist, tugging him forward. “It’s only the unlucky ones who come back.”

“I don’t get it.” Hyunjin dug his heels into the ground to stop Jisung from dragging him off. Embarrassingly, he continued on in an almost petulant tone. “Why can’t you be honest with me, Jisung? We’re friends, aren’t we? I don’t understand why you speak in riddles all the time. If fairies are real, then -- then I’m sure I can believe all the other things you’re hiding from me. I can believe you’re magic if you just tell me!”

Jisung grinned but didn’t reply. He took Hyunjin’s wrist, pried his hand open, and placed a cool object onto the center of his palm. Once Jisung’s hand was out of his view, Hyunjin realized that what he gave him was a rock. A very shiny, adularescent rock.

Hyunjin stared at it, then gave him a confused look. “What’s this? Why did you give me a rock?”

“It’s not a _rock_.” Jisung furrowed his brows, offended. “It’s a moonstone.”

“Where did you get that from?”

Jisung said innocently, “From the ground.”

A beat of silence. Then Hyunjin whipped his head down and felt his eyes bulge. Hyunjin hadn’t noticed them at all, too distracted from the thrill of running through the woods, but there they were growing like wildflowers. There were milky gemstones of pale blues unfurled towards the direction of the sunlight. They even had _leaves_.

“What the hell?” He felt slightly sick. “What the _hell_?”

“This forest grows moonstones,” Jisung chirped.

“On no planet do forests grow moonstones!” This kind of phenomenon could only be plausible in fantasy novels, in worlds scourged from vivid remnants of the imagination or in another dimension -- anywhere but the reality Hyunjin lived in. “I’ve gone bonkers, haven’t I? Oh no. Oh _noooo_.”

Jisung frowned. “You’re not going bonkers.”

“Then who are you? No -- what _are_ you?”

Jisung clamped his mouth shut and his eyes softened. The sun behind him seemed to bellow a resounding brightness that seared into his retinas; Hyunjin squeezed his eyes shut in fear of going blind. The universe was burning and taking Jisung with it.

“I am a creation of both the haunted and the lonely,” Jisung said delicately, and Hyunjin opened his eyes to see him eclipsed in a shadow that brought out the gold of his eyes. “It’s known that all humans were made from the stars, and it just so happened that I was made from the biggest one.”

The forest hummed in a great, pulsing light. Eyes fluttered upon the creaking trees and the river whispered an endless script of moans. 

Hyunjin felt his entire face scrunch up in confusion. He was about to open his mouth to curtly ask if that was a subtle way of saying he was a narcissist when Jisung interrupted him quickly with a guilty look. “That’s all I can really say without being too forward. It wouldn’t be right of me to interfere with the fates.” The more he talked, the more everything made no sense. “I’m sorry, Hyunjinnie. But this moonstone will be the token of this summer memory, and one day, you’ll finally understand. Promise me you’ll keep it.”

Hyunjin primed his lips and clutched the moonstone tightly. He wanted to desperately grab Jisung by the shoulders and shake all the answers out of him, but as much as that was tempting, he couldn’t -- not when Jisung looked so distraught by his own, unexplained restrictions. He was trying, at least. That was something.  


Heaving a sigh out of resignation, he looked down at the precious stone he held between ginger fingers, and said, “Okay. I promise. But you won’t disappear again, will you?”

Jisung immediately lit up like a comet. “Nope. You’re forever stuck with me. I won’t easily be gotten rid of! I’ll be like a leech, or like a fly! _Bzzt bzzt_.” He ran his fingers up and down Hyunjin’s arm and he laughed, swatting his clingy hands away. 

Though there were so many questions yet to be answered, Hyunjin had hope that he would get his answers one day, even if it won’t be today or tomorrow or in weeks, months, and years. Hyunjin could wait. He was good at waiting. 

With Jisung hooking their arms together, they made their way back out of the timberlands. Hyunjin played with the stone in his hand, gaping at its beauty as he lifted it up towards the sky and let the stone reflect off of the sunlight, making it glow and shimmer with what seemed like silver dust.  


Hyunjin turned to look at Jisung, wanting to ask if there was a meaning behind a moonstone, when he saw the faraway look in his eyes. To Hyunjin, Jisung looked more and more like a dream every passing day. He was a figure of warm, hazy gold, like light falling upon pines -- a resurrecting kind of beauty. He wondered how a small boy could possess so much more light than the sun.

When they returned to the asphalt road past the sunflowers, the wheat field no longer existed anymore. In fact, he was back on the road with the lemonade stand beside a large truck, and there was only a field of green and slopes of wildflowers and sunsprites in the distance. No barn, no river travelling into the timberlands, no Claude Monet’s vanilla sky hovering above them.

The question was teetering on the tip of his tongue when Jisung smiled and beat him to it. “A sun illusion.”

“A sun what?” Hyunjin puckered his forehead. “Like -- like a mirage?”

Jisung rubbed a hand over his chin. “I guess so? Just like how when you’re stranded in a desert and you’re thirsty, and then you think you see an oasis when it’s not really there -- maybe back there, the sun was lonely. Maybe that’s why it made up a place so that it could spend time with someone it misses even if it was all an illusion.”

“But the sun isn’t _alive_.” Hyunjin frowned. “So how could it feel lonely?”

“Trust me. The sun is really _really_ , lonely. It’s been lonely for so long.” 

Hyunjin didn’t think that was possible, but then again, fairies existed and he just exited a totally magical forest that grew moonstones. Anything could be possible, at this point. 

Frowning, he looked down at their feet, where an ant was crawling over the laces of his shoes. “Oh. That’s kind of sad. I hope the sun feels a little less lonely now, then, since we went to play in its mirage.”

He looked up at Jisung when he heard soft laughter. Jisung smiled at him with so much warmth and fondness that Hyunjin had to look away again. “You’re really nice, Hyunjinie. No wonder the stars here adore you so much.”

At Hyunjin’s confused look, Jisung patted him on the back and nudged his cheek against his shoulder. “It’s okay! You’re a smart guy. You read so much so I’m sure you’ll understand one day. You’re gonna put two and two together soon!”

“Don’t patronize me,” Hyunjin mumbled, though not unkindly. He smiled a bit shyly at being called smart so he flicked Jisung on the forehead. “Granny’s got lemonade back home so come over to rehydrate yourself before you go back to your farm, okay? I don’t want you to pass out from the heat.”

He took Jisung’s hand and tugged him down the road, ignoring a pair of eyes following their movements.

Later that evening, after Jisung had returned home and left a dazzling first impression from showering his grandma in compliments about her food, she had stared at the chair Jisung had once occupied. She had on an unreadable, tight-lipped expression.

“He’s my friend I've been telling you all about, Granny. He’s Jisung! He lives at the end of the lane of Moondew Valley,” Hyunjin said. “Do you believe me now?”

Granny sighed, knotting together her wrinkly hands. “I would’ve known if a new family moved into the Valley, silly boy. But he seems like a nice, charming young man. I’m happy to see you two get along. It’s not everyday you bring a friend home aside from that Bin boy.” She stood up, collecting the cups with a smirk. “You should bring him over more often. I could use another pair of hands with the garden.”

“Granny!“

“I’m kidding -- somewhat. Now, stop your yapping and help me with the dishes.”

🌣

Hyunjin ended up bringing Jisung over to their cottage more often.

During the afternoons where the sun was at its peak and they were sweating their brows off, they would retreat back to Hyunjin’s cottage and lounge around in his bedroom instead of staying at the fairy ring. (The fairies were much nicer nowadays; some of them tried to braid Hyunjin’s hair since it was long. Hyunjin still couldn’t understand the language they spoke, but it was nice to listen to.) 

Sometimes, they would take naps together since Jisung couldn’t sleepover due to a strict curfew. Hyunjin would end up falling asleep with Jisung curled in his arms and the fan blowing gently at them from above. Though Jisung was smaller in frame, he had the aura of someone who was strong and sturdy. Being with Jisung always made him feel at peace. Like Changbin, Jisung wouldn’t hurt him like the other boys at school. 

At some point, Hyunjin had suggested introducing Jisung to his friends, but Jisung had vehemently rejected the idea. 

“Why not?” Hyunjin frowned. “I promise they’re really nice. Changbin looks scary when you first meet him but he has a bowl cut so that makes him less scary. Seungmin is really nice too. So is Jeongin. I promise they’re not like the boys at my school.”

Jisung shook his head, chewing his lip. “I can’t. I’m not ready yet. I’m not done.” 

“Done with what?”

“With a lot of things. Just, not yet, okay?”

Hyunjin tilted his head. He saw the trepidation in Jisung’s eyes and ruffled his hair. “Okay. It’s not a big deal, Jisung. I can wait. I’m good at waiting. Do you -- do you wanna see my favourite book?”

Almost immediately, the nervousness was washed away by pure excitement. Jisung bobbed his head eagerly and Hyunjin grinned before he crawled over to his desk. He grabbed the book and returned back to his spot, handing it to Jisung with clammy hands. 

“It’s a kid’s book. I know it’s a little weird but I like it a lot. It makes me happy when I’m feeling sad.”

Most kids in Hyunjin’s grade usually picked on him for reading all the time. He’d read during break, during recess, during lunch, and even during assemblies if he was able to sneak his book into the gymnasium. Reading was fun, but not everyone seemed to feel the same way. He still remembered the day where one of his classmates had snatched his book from his hands during recess, and in front of an audience, ripped it to shreds.

Even though his classmate got in trouble, that didn’t mean it hurt any less nor did it mean Hyunjin could ever talk about how much it hurt him in the first place. He picked up the torn pages and hid it inside his pocket, because feelings were meant to be stowed away and kept locked in a box, right? That’s what adults always did, didn’t they?

But Jisung was smiling. He looked genuinely intrigued at the cover. “ _The Velveteen Rabbit._ It sounds so _cool_. I’ve never read it before, what’s it about?”

That wasn’t a reaction Hyunjin was expecting, but then again, Jisung was always full of surprises. “It’s about a stuffed rabbit that becomes real through the love of a little boy.”

“Oh, what a pretty story.” Jisung flipped through the pages, _ooh_ -ing and aah-ing at the illustrations. “What a pretty, little rabbit.”

Hyunjin watched the pages flip. His chest felt warm. “When I feel like I’m doing a bad job at being a person, the rabbit in the story reminds me to be myself, and that I’m loved by so many people, like Granny, my friends, and you. And that means I’m -- I’m _real_. And the boy reminds me to love like how the boy loved his rabbit so much his rabbit became real too.”

Jisung smiled. There was a softness to the tilt of his lips. “What about you? Will you still love your rabbit even if it disappears, one day?”

“But I’d have to stop loving it for it to disappear,” said Hyunjin. 

“Maybe it isn’t just love. Maybe it’s also faith. If you stop believing in them, in the realness of them, then they’d fade away too.”

“I guess so.” Hyunjin frowned. 

Jisung closed the book and hugged it, before plopping a big, wet smooch onto the cover. Hyunjin gawked, unsure if he should be grossed out at there being mouth germs on his book now. “What a wonderful person you are, Hyunjinie! May the stars stay with you through day and night in the absence of the sun.” 

“Huh?”

“So, is this what you wanna do when you grow up? Writing stories and all that?” Jisung barged on. At Hyunjin’s sheepish nod, he beamed and raised the book in his hands over his head. “Wow. I’ll be the first one to buy your book then! You’re gonna take the world by storm and be one of the best authors out there! Your granny is gonna be so proud and so will I!”

He watched the light in Jisung’s eyes gleam with pure faith in him. It was the feeling of a starburst, sweet and a bit sour. Hyunjin ducked his head down and covered his face with an arm, unable to hide the blush that crept up from his toes to his neck to his face and to the tips of his ears. “Stooop.”

“Why? Why?” Jisung poked at Hyunjin’s cheek. “Hey, come on. Don’t be shy.”

“I’m not shy!”

Jisung snorted. Then, he grabbed Hyunjin’s head and yelled out a consecutive list of compliments into his ears, ignoring Hyunjin’s desperate pleas for mercy. Laughing, Jisung flopped onto him and threw an arm over his shoulder to bring him closer to his chest so he could lay his cheek atop of Hyunjin’s head. He felt like a cat trying to snuggle with him. Hyunjin didn’t mind since his grandma wasn’t the cuddling type and he’d always wanted to try and be the little spoon.

“I’ll always believe in you, Hyunjin,” Jisung whispered. “Even if you don’t believe in me anymore, that’s okay, because I’ll do the believing for the both of us.” 

Hyunjin glanced up at him, though all he saw was the underside of Jisung’s jaw. “Hannie?”

“I’ll always find you.”

Hyunjin let out a breathy laugh. He’d learn to go along with their nonlinear conversations, even if it was progressively becoming more confusing. “And I’ll find you too.”

“Can you read the story to me?”

Hyunjin grinned. “Okay.”

They spend the rest of the afternoon basking in the little sunspot of his room. He read the words out loud in a soft voice, accompanied by the ricochet of flipping pages, and Hyunjin wondered if he would love Jisung as much as the little boy loved his velveteen rabbit too.

🌣

Come September, the leaves on the trees began to darken. Among the days of playing with scheming fairies, venturing through dreamscapes made by sun illusions, and slowly unravelling the mystery that was Jisung, Hyunjin found an attachment for the serenity of the routine that had become so ingrained into his life. Magic existed in this world and Hyunjin knew of it: the fairy ring, the wheat fields, and their made-up regal statuses were things that were just for the both of them to share and no one else. Even Granny didn’t know.

Though Jisung didn’t talk much about his family and could never stay past sunset, he became more open about his little quirks. Hyunjin stored those little tidbits about him closely to his heart like a prized possession.

Most of all, Hyunjin didn’t want this to end. He wanted to go to the fairy ring everyday without any worries, and talk about quiet nonsense that consisted of wispy dreams and idle things. He wanted this to go on. He wished these adventures would never disappear. 

But all good things must come to an end, don’t they? 

And it happened like this:

Jisung was at the Lee’s house. 

Hyunjin was passing by one day when he saw them. They were talking by the steps to the door, their foreheads almost touching. Jisung seemed to have been whispering something to Minho, whose expression never changed -- not even a single twitch. When he locked eyes with Hyunjin, though, his lips minutely lifted and Hyunjin had run away before he could process what he just saw.

Jisung had never mentioned being friends with the Lee’s only son. When he tried to ask, Jisung had blanched and shut him down immediately, leaving Hyunjin feeling a little unsettled and mostly hurt. 

He tried not to dwell on it as much. Jisung had his secrets and all Hyunjin could do was respect them. So he went through the day pretending he never saw them together, that he didn’t see the way Jisung squeezed his eyes shut when he spoke to Minho, or the ghost of a smile on Minho’s face when he saw Hyunjin. He’d always been docile and good at thinking instead of feeling, after all. 

Hyunjin never got angry, until one day, his classmates knew just the spot to target him. Then he was stomping to the fairy ring with tears in his eyes he desperately held back, because he wasn’t supposed to cry, because he had to show everyone that just because he didn’t have parents didn’t mean he grew up any different than the rest of them, because he wasn’t a kid anymore and he was a grown-up and he knew how to be grown-up. He knew the difference between make-believe and reality. He knew what happened to other boys who spent too much time with boys. 

“Hyunjin?” Jisung looked up at him in concern. “What’s wrong?”

Hyunjin wouldn’t step in the fairy ring. He couldn’t. He _can’t_ anymore. He didn’t want any of his classmates to see him, then make fun of him, then say that he’s weird and crazy for believing in these fantasy stories, because it was true. How did he know any of this was truly real? How did he know he wasn’t being lied to like always?

“We can be friends without magic,” Hyunjin mumbled, wiping his snotty nose with his sleeve. “We don’t need the fairy rings or the forest or all the other magical things. Can’t we just be friends like normal people?”

Jisung blinked. He stood up from the fairy ring but didn’t attempt to move. “But we’re not normal people, Hyunjin.”

Something inside of him burst open. A flame. A fire. “What? Because I’m an outcast from school? Because I have a granny instead of a mom and dad? Because -- because I believe in fairies and forests and magic? Fine. Okay. You’re right, then. But what’s the point in believing if I don’t even know the truth? What’s the point in doing _all_ of this when I’m never told anything?”

“Hyunjin --”

“No! Don’t tell me it’s because you don’t want to interfere with the _fates_ or whatever, because I’m sick of hearing about it. You lie to me all the time when we’re supposed to be friends. I wait, and I always wait, and I’m good at waiting but I _hate_ it. I hate waiting so much.” Hyunjin was shaking despite the dry, autumn air. “You have so many secrets that I don’t even _know_ you.” 

Jisung was looking down at his hands. He looked so scared, all of a sudden. “Hyunjin, you -- you can’t. Wait. Please wait.“

“Granny said that you don’t even live at the end of the lane! It’s been abandoned for a long time and nobody in Moondew has ever heard of you. You -- you’re like a _ghost_. A ghost that doesn’t even know that it’s dead. So how can I believe in you if I don’t even know you? How do I know you’re real when you hide all the time? But that’s just it, isn’t it? You’re not real. You _never_ were.”

The sun was seized by a shadow. Heavy clouds rumbled and rolled across the sky and covered up the blueness of it. Jisung looked pale within the wilting fairy ring. His aura had dimmed into a wet fragment of what had been there. He looked at Hyunjin with soft, tender eyes, despite melting into what seemed like imminent death. His figure flickered like a disturbed puddle. 

Then, he was fading. He was so transparent that Hyunjin could see the rows of houses behind -- no, _through_ him. He was liquid light spilled across the floor, wasted away.

“Please, still love the rabbit,” he whispered.

Hyunjin blinked. Then Jisung was gone. 

“Jisung?” He was shaking harder now, but not from anger. He rushed into the fairy ring and wondered if the fairies had kidnapped him, but nothing changed. The cinereal clouds were still travelling to the edge of the earth before he felt the first few raindrops fall onto his nose. When he looked up at the sky, that was when it began to pour. 

“Jisung? Where did you go?” he called. He turned around frantically. “Jisung?”

The heat in his chest was replaced by a melancholic blue. Drenched in the rain, Hyunjin stayed in the fairy ring, feeling guilt carve its name onto his pomegranate heart so he could wear this shame forever.

🌣

Hyunjin thought that he’d see Jisung the next day, hoping to apologize and mend things. He’d let his heart speak rather than his head, and that wasn’t who he was. Granny didn’t teach him to take his problems out on people. That was called projecting and he needed to be responsible for hurting someone else’s feelings just because he couldn’t process his own.

But the fairy ring was empty today. 

Jisung wasn’t there, even as Hyunjin sat in the circle and waited as the sad sun disappeared behind the mountains; as he waited until a chilly nightfall bestowed upon Moondew. Even the fairies didn’t show up, but Hyunjin had already developed the creeping suspicion that the fairies were connected to Jisung in a mysterious way, so if Jisung didn’t show up, then neither would the fairies.

Hyunjin walked home by himself along the road strewn with moon flowers that unfurled its petals every time he walked past them. The crescent moon hung in the sky like a sharp scythe, like dirty beach sand with footprints on it -- the dim outline of its round shape illuminated by an earthshine.

The moon looked lonely, but at least it had the company of the stars.

🌣

Hyunjin didn’t see Jisung the next day either.

Or the next. Or the next. Or the next.

He stared at the wilted flower crown and the moonstone that sat atop his shelf, and wondered if he’d ruined something that used to make him very, very happy.

🌣

“Who?”

Seungmin stared at him, nonplussed. His cheeks were full of all the strawberries he was cramming into his mouth. It was a funny sight, but Hyunjin felt too much like a broken record to find amusement in it.

“The Han’s,” Hyunjin said. “You know? The father and son living at the end of the lane? Or, um. Just father and son handling some farm. Surely you must have heard of them.”

Seungmin frowned. “Can’t say I’ve heard of them. All I know is that the farm at the end of the lane has been abandoned for a very long -- hey, Yuna! put that down!” He yelled at one of his little sisters who was trying to put a lint roller in her mouth. Seungmin hurriedly went to grab the roller out of her hands and replaced it with a strawberry. “You’re so gross, you know?”

All he received as a response was a stuck-out tongue. Seungmin trudged back towards Hyunjin who was still sulking. “Are you sure he said that he lived at the end of the lane? Maybe he said train? Or he was in pain?”

“I don’t think he was in pain, Seungmin.”

Seungmin shrugged. “Okay, then. Why don’t you go visit him? See it for yourself?”

Hyunjin swallowed. He hated his cowardly heart. “I just -- I’m scared. What if you guys are right? What if it _is_ abandoned, and that all this time maybe everything was all just a lie. I don’t want that. I don’t -- I don’t want to think that our friendship was a lie. I shouldn’t have gotten mad at him in the first place. If I didn’t, then maybe he would still be here.”

“It’s better to know than to sit in the dark about it,” Seungmin said. “It’ll give you a peace of mind afterwards. Some things were meant to happen, you know?”  
There was some logic behind his words. Hyunjin nodded along. “Okay. Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

“When am I not?” Seungmin jutted his chin out. His proud expression went slack when he heard a knock on the door, and his grin was replaced with a scowl. “That must be Jeongin. I bet he wants to try and beat me in arm wrestling again after I crushed him yesterday.” At another pound on his door, he yelled over his shoulder, “Alright, stupid! I’m coming!”

When Jeongin bulldozed through, only to fall onto his knees when Seungmin kicked him from behind, Hyunjin laughed into his arm and felt a bit more hopeful.

🌣

The sky was obsidian, streaked with thick, rolling clouds. The sun was nowhere to be seen, but it didn’t deter Hyunjin from making his way to the house at the end of the lane. Past the fairy ring, past the rowan tree, past the Yang’s farm, and past his neighbours of Moondew, Hyunjin ran all the way down the field, skipping over the fences. He ran through the shrubs before he found himself back onto the tarmac path that led to the end of the lane.

He was thrumming with nervous energy. Jisung may have kept a lot of things from him, but Hyunjin needed to see. He needed to see so he could know that all the trust he had in Jisung was not in vain. Impatient, he took all that energy and put it into running. He ran until his chest hurt and legs ache and eyes stung but he was filled with hope and longing and --

Oh.

Hyunjin gasped. He slowed down into wobbly steps before coming to a full stop.

The land looked bleaked. Untouched. The barns and stables were decrepit and ready to fall apart any second, and the vacant house that came along with it was covered in overgrown vines and mold. Hyunjin couldn’t even see half of the house’s structure from all the shrubs and trees that grew closely around the building.  
It was empty. It was really, really empty.

_Abandoned property._

He walked towards the house, careful not to touch the patinated fences as he walked past. The porch seemed rickety and weak, and Hyunjin didn’t want to sport a sprained ankle when he had to walk all the way back to his cottage, so he stood in front of it instead. The odor of mildew was strong, and Hyunjin wrapped his arms around his waist to keep himself warm when he suddenly felt cold.

Hyunjin licked his lips. He looked at the torn, screen door, and whispered, “Hannie?”

_Never step into a fairy ring, or else it will bring you bad luck._

And on that bleak, autumn day, Hyunjin wished he had listened to his grandma after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOO OK..... so this took longer than i expected but! am crying ok here u go thank u all so much for reading T.T i'll write more in the ends note to not spoil hehe

**II. THE FAIRY KING**

Hyunjin stepped into the fairy ring.

Nothing changed. The night sky, the stars, the wildflowers -- all remained still like the motionless moonshadows on the grass. Hyunjin looked at the tall span of trees stretched far beyond the horizon, sheathed in cases of glinting ice and belonging to a forest that had a pathway leading to an iridescent creek where nymphs were rumoured to bathe in. 

And then, he saw it again. 

Emerging from the dark with its enormous rack of antlers glowing in the night like a giant candelabra, the white stag stared at Hyunjin from in between the trees with eyes that seemed to beckon him forward. There was a tug of connection -- of familiarity. With the moon hanging above his head, Hyunjin stepped out of the fairy ring and ran towards the forest when the stag receded into the trees. 

“Hey!” he shouted. His feet pounded across the meadow of wildflowers and tall grass before he was running through the ancient trees, his feet snagging onto roots that sprung up from the earth. 

Hyunjin lost the stag, but he found himself lost in the forest too. Beady eyes blinked in the shadows. Murky moonlight danced beneath his feet. Faint laughter fluttered between the hollow branches. Hyunjin swallowed loudly and looked around, tentatively calling out, “Hello?”

There were voices itching in his ears spoken in an unfamiliar language. Frowning, his leaden legs took him farther into the heart of the forest. Hyunjin had lost track of time before he finally reached a clearing when he pushed past the thick bushes, and found himself at the creek. The moonlight pierced through the surface of the waters and shone opaluscently. 

There were no rumoured nymphs, but there was the ghost-like stag again -- staring at Hyunjin with a bare twitch to its head. Hyunjin quickly wobbled his way through the bumpy ground and skipped over the rocks, and slowly approached the stag that made no indication of running away. 

“Hi,” he gasped, holding out a hand. “I won’t hurt you.”

Crouching down, Hyunjin inched towards the white stag until they were face-to-face. It didn’t move, but Hyunjin could still feel its gaze pinned on him despite lacking the detailed anatomy. “Are you magic too?”

The stag leaned forward until their foreheads touched, but then a voice commanded by the skies penetrated the moon and cracked it open, spilling silver-blue grains from its crevices and onto the earth: “ _PL̷͎̬̳̉̄͝ƐΛse̷ still L̷͎̬̳̉̄͝o̴̜̝̗͛͆͐vє the̷ [1̲̅]Λ[?̲̅][!̲̅][!̲̅][?̲̅]._ ” 

The ground beneath him began to rumble. Hyunjin fell onto his back and watched the sky plummet towards him until --

He opened his eyes. 

The skylight pooled through his yellow curtains and on to the floorboards. Hyunjin sat up in his bed, grimacing as he peeled the back of his sweaty shirt away from his skin. 

He hadn’t dreamed this vividly since he was young, but ever since he turned twenty-three, he’d been getting the same dream over and over again. He was always young in that dream -- maybe thirteen, fourteen. There was the fairy ring. The white, glittering stag. The creek. The clefted moon. The ancient voice that spoke in a foreign tongue. Then he woke up. Rinse and repeat.

Hyunjin scrubbed at his sleepy eyes and watched particles of dust float in the light, evidence of the room being untouched for years. Granny hadn’t cleaned even when he called prior to let her know he was returning to Moondew for the summer. She didn’t find it necessary to upkeep it -- as if she knew, one day, he’d return to inhabit his childhood home again even if it wasn’t for long. 

Granny didn’t cling to unnecessary fear nor did she dwell in it like Hyunjin did. He’d always admired her for that. 

He hopped out of bed and went to clean up in the bathroom before deciding to take a quick shower as well. He let the cold water wash away the bizarre dream down the drain, taking the agitation churning in his guts along with it. After he dried himself clean, he changed into a white t-shirt and a pair of hideous, floral-printed shorts his friend back in the city had gifted him, then skipped down the stairs with a growling stomach.

The cottage remained the same as when Hyunjin had left it seven years ago, but the plant family Granny had accumulated over the years were gone. There were a lot more charms added to the hearth. They resembled runes that he never bothered to ask about as he grew older. Granny always had a bit of an arcane air to her.

“About time you woke up,” she greeted him gruffly at the table. An empty bowl was pushed aside for the newspaper. 

“Hi, Granny,” Hyunjin said, clasping his hands behind his back as he rocked back and forth on his heels. “Still got food for one more?”

“Brat. Who do you think I am? Go sit down. And what kind of pants are those, boy? You’d think a life outside the valley would teach you how to dress better.”

“I just got back yesterday and you’re already ripping me apart,” Hyunjin muttered and took a seat as she shuffled into the kitchen to bring out food for him. He thanked her by giving a quick peck to her cheek. “I’ll change into nicer ones for you after I finish eating.”

Much to his surprise, she chuckled. “You haven’t changed a bit. Thought the city life would’ve made you pretentious.”

Hyunjin shrugged. He scooped up a spoonful of blackberry jam and chucked it into his porridge. As she settled back down into her seat across from him, he realized how much smaller she’d grown -- older, too, from the way her shoulders hunched and her plaited hair had turned white like the milky moon in his dream. “It’s not home.”

He missed Moondew. He could never see the stars clearly back in the city since they were always covered by the smog. The sun looked too dreary and bleak like a spoiled yolk that never burned as bright as Moondew. 

Hyunjin missed the fresh apricot jam of the Kim’s, the earthy scent of the fruits and vegetables his grandmother would bring back from her trip to the farmer’s market, the taste of the lemon lollipops Changbin would give him to cheer him up, and the four-leaf clovers that stuck to the lines on his palms as he carried them to the rowan tree that stood tall and wise through all seasons. 

He felt homesick, despite running from home in the first place.

“And, uh.” He stirred his porridge before taking in a spoonful. “I’ve missed the people. No one makes food better than you do, Granny.”

His granny hummed, tapping her pen against the rim of the table. She kept her eyes on the newspaper. “You’re just buttering me all up because you want to ask about that Han boy, don’t you.”

Hyunjin choked.

“You may have grown bigger, and awfully tall, but you are still so easy to read.” She clicked her tongue. “The city folk must have a lot of fun with you.”

Hyunjin coughed into the crook of his arm. He took a swig of his orange juice and patted his chest. Though he was older, he never seemed to age around his grandma. “ _Granny._ ”

“I’m messing with you, boy. He hasn’t shown up since that summer,” she finally answered after finding some amusement in his misery. “Do you still think he’ll show up one day? Randomly, as he did, those summers ago?”

Hyunjin idly scooped up the porridge before flicking it back into the bowl. He thought he’d gotten better at hiding his feelings, stuffing them all down into a box, but he supposed he could never hide anything from Granny. She had the eyes of a clairvoyant. “It’s been eleven years, Granny. I’m over it. I’ve stopped waiting for a long, long time. Besides, we weren’t even friends for that long. It doesn’t matter anymore.” 

“The amount of time you’ve known someone does not correlate to how much they have made an influence in your life.” 

“He probably wasn’t even real,” he mumbled.

“To you, maybe, since that’s what you truly believe.” She was looking at him now. Her eyes were sharp and hawkish. “But what if you _did_ believe he was real? Would he show up, then?”

There was an underlying significance to her words. Hyunjin could hear it -- see it. She stared at him like she knew more than she let on. “Granny?“

“If you’re not going to finish that, then let me clean up already,” she stood up briskly. She grabbed his bowl and stacked it with his empty cup, and brought it to the sink to wash. “Now, I want none of your pessimism in this house. God knows how much I’ve had to deal with it since you were a teenager. Go and pick up the milk the Yang’s have prepared for me, but change those revolting pants of yours first.”

Hyunjin huffed. “Just so you know, they were a _gift_.”

“Get friends who can give you better presents, then.”

Hyunjin rolled his eyes as he stood up from his seat. He chewed on his lips in thought, wondering if he should press her for more information, but he shook the idea away. It was only his second day back. He could wait.

Upstairs, he changed into brown checkered pants with suspenders, and tied his long, black hair into a half ponytail. On his way out, he hugged his grandma from behind and kissed the top of her head. He missed her, quite so; she was a pillar, a titaness of limitless love, and he’d forgotten how being cared for felt like in such a slow-spun town unlike the fast-paced city.

Stepping out of the cottage that was now draped in overgrown vines with dead roses, where their brown and limp petals fell like confetti for their own funeral, Hyunjin stopped and looked around the yard. He found it odd since the roses were always blooming bright and vibrant in the summer. Even Granny’s garden was a cesspool of death, and when he asked her what happened, she merely grunted and changed the topic. Hyunjin knew not to pry, but there was something weird going on. 

The sky was grey and the sun was covered by the clouds. Hyunjin began walking down the familiar road of pampas grass and shrubs of wilted azaleas. He walked past the white picket fence and yellow bungalow house, hoping to find Seungmin sitting out on the porch as he usually did, but the house seemed strangely asleep. In fact -- as he trekked down the road more -- most of the neighborhood seemed too quiet. It struck him as odd, because for all that he’s known most of his life, Moondew never slept. 

Brushing away the niggling concern, Hyunjin continued his way towards the Yang farm. Their well-kempt farmhouse came into view soon enough, and he gave the front door a few knocks. He put his hands into the pockets of his pants, looking around their fields as he waited -- only to notice that all their land was empty of the crops they usually grew in the summer. 

“Mr. Yang?” he called after there was still no answer. The windows were all covered by their chiffon curtains. Hyunjin began walking around the house. There were no signs of the Yang’s, but Hyunjin spotted a figure from afar who was lugging a stack of hay to the paddock. Hyunjin squinted at them, wondering if it was a newcomer, but then he recognized the lazy gait of the figure and gasped. 

“Hey!” he shouted, running towards the figure. “Binnie!”

Changbin’s eyes comically widened and his expression immediately went slack at the sight of Hyunjin. He shouted back incoherently and threw down the stack of hay, opening his arms for a hug only to almost topple over when Hyunjin barrelled into him. 

Hyunjin grinned and squeezed his best friend tight. Once he withdrew, he placed his hands on Changbin’s shoulders that’d grown broad. Changbin was no longer the gangly high schooler six years ago. He’d grown taller but still stood a bit shorter than Hyunjin; he filled out his proportions and was now healthily toned. He looked a lot happier, too -- happier than the last time Hyunjin had seen him, when he was brooding in the attic of the church with an apple-sized bruise on his cheekbone. 

“Dude, what the fuck,” was the first thing Changbin said while laughing in disbelief. “Why the fuck did you grow even _taller_? What have they been feeding you in the city?” He reached forward to pinch Hyunjin’s cheek, stretching it like a rice cake. “You still look like such a baby, though.”

“Hey, hey, hands off,” he complained, swatting his hand away. “Don’t brutalize the face.”

Changbin snickered. “Did you just get back? Woulda brought over some drinks to celebrate if I knew.”

“I got back yesterday, but I knocked out straight away. It was a long commute. Are you working for the Yang’s, now?”

“Yeah. They needed an extra pair of hands to help around and I just so happened to have the brawns for it.” Changbin put his hands on his hips and sighed as he looked over at the dead fields. “The animals are what they got, right now. Can’t really do much without the crops.”

“About that -- what’s going on?” Hyunjin followed his gaze to the rows and chewed at his bottom lip. “Everything is so empty. So barren. Even all the flowers in my Granny’s garden had died, and she’s not the type of person to let it all just -- _wilt_. It’s kind of scary.”

Changbin smiled in a way that made his eyes soften, but it was a sad kind of look that Hyunjin rarely saw even as children. “Moondew lost its sun, Hyunjin.”

“What?”

“The sun disappeared after you left, never to shine again. Always hiding behind those nimbostratus clouds. It’s been a struggle to upkeep agriculture without the sun. Everything, everyone -- we all need it. There’s either heavy rain or storms but never the sun, so nothing grows in Moondew anymore.”

There was a pang in his chest. Hyunjin looked up at the sunless sky and swallowed loudly. “But why? How can that even happen?”

“The sun is grieving.”

“The sun isn’t _animate_. So how can it grieve?”

Consternation clouded Changbin’s expression. Hyunjin’s mouth opened with a question, but stopped when Changbin shook his head and waved away the topic at hand. “Nevermind. You’re here for the milk, aren’t you? Wait here. Everyone else went to prepare for the upcoming Syzygy festival, so I’ve been managing their farm alone for a while, now.”

Hyunjin blinked. “The _what_ , now?”

But Changbin was already trudging away in his heavy boots. Hyunjin blankly watched him waddle towards the farmhouse to grab something perched on the back porch, before running back to Hyunjin with a large glass jug of milk in his arms. 

“Tell your gran I said hi,” he said as he handed the bottle over.

“Since when did we have a sig -- zig -- “

“Oh. Syzygy?” Changbin shrugged. “Well, it’s a rare phenomenon, actually. It was foretold that it would happen this summer ever since Moondew was created. Everyone’s been anticipating it since March.” He glanced up at the sky. “Maybe the sun will shine once again, after the festival.”

Hyunjin stared at him. His heart toppled down to his stomach that churned in trepidation, uncertainty, and slight fear. Hyunjin had never heard of a Syzygy festival nor did he ever know such an event existed. So much had happened within the duration of him being gone. 

Hyunjin had an inkling that Moondew was no longer the Moondew he knew as a kid. But the question arose in the back of his mind: did he _truly_ know anything, at all? 

“Thanks,” he said belatedly as he looked down at the milk. “I, um. Okay. I guess I’ll be heading back, then? I -- yeah. It was nice to see you again, Binnie. Let’s catch up, soon.”

Changbin grinned impishly and flicked him on the forehead. “Of course.” 

His mind was still surging with confusion. Hyunjin watched Changbin work a little longer before he turned around and trekked off the farmlands.

All the flora and fauna was gone, no longer seen in the fields stretched lazily across the billowing hills with its wilted stubble and yellowed pasture. Though his head was set on returning to the cottage with the milk, his heart took him down the road instead. The bare cypress trees that stood from afar looked like towers that guarded the entrance to the forest in his dream. But as he reached the familiar forked path by the meadows, he stopped at the sight of the rowan tree. It was the only tree that still bore life among the dead plains.

The fairy ring was still there. Empty, but still there, with the arc of red-capped and pink oyster mushrooms, and the darker patch of grass inside. It glowed with a ribbon of silver light. 

Hyunjin gnawed at his bottom lip. Unresolved grief rattled between his ribs the longer he stared at it. He remembered how he returned from the house at the end of the lane with tear tracks down his cheeks and mud stains on his knees eleven years ago. He couldn't forget the shock that flitted across his grandma's face when he cried in her lap. 

He didn't remember much, after that. But Hyunjin knew that the more he grew up, the more the fairy ring got pushed to the back of his mind. There were the school bullies and Granny’s garden and lending a hand with moving all of Changbin’s belongings to the church attic when that became his official home. Hyunjin had been too busy, too hurt, to dwell on childhood lingerings.

But on the last day of school before summer break, Hyunjin had stood outside of the fairy ring and stared at the circle of mushrooms after classes had ended. He no longer brought four-leaf clovers with him. Sunshadows stood motionless on the grass, but the sun itself was orange and bleary, smearing the sky like brassy oils. 

The sun had never looked the same ever since Jisung disappeared. It dragged the days behind like cold molasses.

He closed his eyes. And for the last time, he had waited underneath the rowan tree outside of the fairy ring until the sun met the earth, until the sun set behind the mountains, until the clouds covered up the watery light of the moon. Then, he'd trudged back to the garden with a crestfallen heart. 

“You must eat well,” Granny had said the same night as she peeled an orange, split it into perfect halves, and gave both to him. 

He looked down at the fruit in his hands. All he could think about at that moment was wanting to give the other half to Jisung, if he were still by his side. 

And then, just like that, he finally stopped waiting. 

He had deemed Jisung as merely a figment of his active imagination when he'd been lonely and bored that summer day. After all, growing up was about losing things. Growing up was about losing people. And growing up meant losing a part of his imagination.

Shaking his head, Hyunjin turned around and walked back up the road. There was no point in ruminating over the past. Jisung had never been real in the first place. He was grieving over a ghost that never existed. 

Jisung belonged to the ruins, just like that dump at the end of the lane.

And so, he returned to the cottage, ignoring how the clouds rumbled and wailed and covered up the sun’s lamenting light.

☽

There it was again -- the white stag.

Hyunjin pried his way through the forest. Leaves got caught in his hair and branches scratched against his bare knees. The trees were alive, whispering unintelligible enticements in his ears as they blinked their white eyes open. The moon smiled with teeth whiter than milk as it followed him to the creek. 

“Wait!” he called after the stag, which stopped in its tracks. It waited by the logs of the creek, its figure glowing with silver dust. “Who are you?”

Hyunjin watched as a trail of rabbits hopped out from the bushes and surrounded the stag, their beady eyes shining red in the night. The white stag lifted its neck so that it faced the moonlit sky, but then its face began to warp and stretch and drip like melted wax. The stag’s face changed shape until it molded into a distorted, human face, with a wide hollow smile and a hollower pair of eyes. Hair grew from its scalp until it reached the ground like a black waterfall. 

Hyunjin scampered backwards in shock, tripping over his feet that made him fall back onto his bum. He looked up at the stag, his stomach bottoming out as his heart lurched to his throat. 

“ _PL̷͎̬̳̉̄͝ƐΛse̷ still L̷͎̬̳̉̄͝o̴̜̝̗͛͆͐vє the̷ [1̲̅]Λ[?̲̅][!̲̅][!̲̅][?̲̅]._ ” 

The red-eyed rabbits carried the bladed moon across the waters. Hyunjin blinked, then the stag was there inches away from his face, staring into him with its hollow slits of eyes, and then he was screaming, and then --

Hyunjin sat up in his bed with a strained gasp. 

Hazy skylight poured through his curtains. Hyunjin took in a shaky breath and ran his hands through his hair that was damp with sweat. It felt -- _looked_ so real. He clutched his chest and willed for his heartbeat to calm down. _Just a dream._

The clamor of pots crashing downstairs grounded him in the moment. He swallowed and threw aside the thin covers. As he stood up, the dim skylight had reflected off of a surface that gleamed in his peripheral vision and he turned towards it. Hyunjin stopped in his tracks. The moonstone, after all these years, continued to collect dust from atop his shelf. 

Hyunjin had forgotten about that too.

Tearing his gaze away, Hyunjin kept his eyes down as he left his room. He relieved the ache in his bladder and washed himself, before he changed out of his sweaty pajamas and into clean clothes. Shambling down the stairs while tying up his hair, he called out morning greetings to his grandma, only to receive a grunt in response. 

“Granny, can I ask you something?” He shovelled porridge into his mouth before swallowing it down with a swig of tea. He tore off a piece of Yorkshire pudding and stuffed his face in it. “It’s about the Sig -- shi -- siz -- “

“What?” she asked gruffly.

“The -- _festival_ that everyone went to town to prepare for,” he finally said after failed attempts at pronouncing the name. “What does it mean? Like, what are we celebrating?”

Granny watched him closely. “Did that Bin boy tell you about it?”

“Was he not supposed to?”

“No, nothing like that,” she said as she straightened out the newspaper in her hands. “God, about time this conversation happened.”

Hyunjin sent her a puzzled look, voice muffled by the food in his mouth. “What?”

“The Syzygy festival is for the Sun King,” she said, “and for the Moon King. They are the deities of Moondew. I don’t do a very good job at explaining the story, but the most I can tell you is that the festival is to celebrate the time where they will finally meet again and align. It’s quite a special occasion. We’ve all been waiting for it since we existed here, and it just might be the thing we need ever since Moondew went into a sundrought.”

“How come I’ve never heard of it?” Hyunjin frowned. “Any of it, actually. I never knew we had -- deities we worshipped.” He blinked, his eyes slowly widening at a thought coming to fruition in his mind. He leaned forward and lowered his voice to frantic whisper, “Granny. Are we a _cult_?”

Granny rolled up the newspaper in her hands to smack the top of his head. “You and your nonsense!”

“It’s a genuine concern!”

“You are a _child_ ,” she scowled. “Eat your food and get outta here. The city air must have contaminated the cells of your brain. Go breathe back the air of Moondew!”

“Okay, okay,” Hyunjin mumbled sadly as he scooped up the dredges of his porridge. He slurped up all his tea and stuffed his mouth with another Yorkshire pudding before he narrowly dodged Granny’s rolled newspaper when he brought all his empty plates to the sink. After he washed all the dishes, he slipped into his sneakers and stepped outside. 

Hyunjin kicked their rickety gate and made a mental note to himself to try and fix it later in the week. He noticed that the Kim’s were still missing, and so were their other neighbours. He wondered if he should pay a visit to town to check out how the preparations for the festival were going. But he never liked going to the town, so he shook the thought away and walked around the vicinity. 

He mindlessly wandered around, only to find that his legs had taken him down the road to the meadows where the rowan tree stood tall and stoic. The fairy ring glimmered with the same sort of enticement the trees had whispered to him in his dream. 

He chewed at the inside of his lip before looking around. He was alone. Moondew was quiet -- almost asleep. Dead. 

After a moment’s worth of uncertainty, Hyunjin finally crossed the field of wilted wildflowers and approached the fairy ring. He stepped into the circle and slowly sat down, ensconced in the middle as a trail of goosebumps rose on his skin. There was a pang of longing in his chest for the graveyard of dissipated friendships Hyunjin had made in his head the day Jisung disappeared like a star at daybreak. 

“The king of the fairy ring,” he whispered. He scoffed at the nostalgia -- the foolishness of it all -- and laid down on the grass. 

Through the foliage of the rowan tree, the sky seemed to drape him in a cocoon of warmth that had him closing his eyes. He started to drift off, lulled to sleep by the memory of Jisung chatting non-stop about the eight wonders of the world. He could almost hear him right beside him, his voice high-toned and cheerful, all doe-eyed and rosy-cheeked. 

Hyunjin hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep until something soft brushed against his cheek, jolting him awake. 

At first, he thought it was a butterfly. He swatted it away, only to get smacked on the cheek by the mystery insect, and he sputtered in surprise. His eyes fluttered open and blinked away the bleariness in his vision. But as soon as it cleared, he found himself staring at a winged creature in the shape of a tiny, human being, depositing gold dust all over his bishop-sleeved blouse.

Shock was an understatement. 

“What,” Hyunjin croaked. 

It was a fairy.

Hyunjin sat up cautiously; his heart was pounding in his ears and sweat was trickling down his back. This wasn’t possible. Fairies only appeared when Jisung was there with him. Hyunjin frantically looked around, but as expected, Jisung was nowhere to be seen. 

He swallowed and looked back at the fairy fluttering before him. Fairies often appeared in flocks, but strangely enough, it was just one this time. 

“Hi,” Hyunjin said, scooting back a bit. “Um. Hey.” 

The fairy spoke in its same, garbled language. It circled around him almost out of frustration, leaving a trail of golden dust to scatter after it, and Hyunjin caught the dust in his cupped palms. 

“Wait, wait. I -- I’m not like him. I don’t understand. I’m sorry, I can’t -- I don’t understand,” he whispered, letting the sand sift through the gaps of his fingers. It reminded him of the silver grains that spilled from the crack of the moon in his dream. “I wish I could. I’ve always wanted to know what you’ve been saying to me all this time.”

The fairy stopped in front of him, tilting its head and putting its tiny arms akimbo. It looked as though it was scrutinizing Hyunjin from head to toe, when finally, a tendril of words echoed in the space between them.

“ _T̩̫̞̟h̹͕̞̩̝e̝ͅ ̥̙̝̼̫̲̙w͚i̦̜t̺̻c͉̲̱̠̳̭̦h͓̮._ ”

Hyunjin gaped.

“ _T̩̫̞̟h̹͕̞̩̝e̝ͅ ̥̙̝̼̫̲̙w͚i̦̜t̺̻c͉̲̱̠̳̭̦h͓̮._ ”

“The witch?” he repeated tentatively. “Me? Are you saying that I’m a witch? I’m not a witch.”

The fairy swept around in convoluted arcs. Hyunjin watched, nonplussed, until he realized that the fairy was drawing out an object with the gold dust that scattered after it in its wake. The sparkling image was that of a flower with overlapping petals and a tall, long stalk.

The golden dust fell and scattered. The fairy hovered before him once again. 

“ _T̩̫̞̟h̹͕̞̩̝e̝ͅ ̥̙̝̼̫̲̙w͚i̦̜t̺̻c͉̲̱̠̳̭̦h͓̮._ ” A pause. “ _G̝̲o̫̯ ̞̖͔to̜̪ ̹̥̺̠t̼͕̙͎h̗̯̮͈e ̘̖̜̙̺w̱̪̟͎i̝t͈̭̭̯c̲̪̞̬̖h͓͚͉._ ”

“ _What_ witch? Who’s the witch? Just tell me!” Hyunjin demanded petulantly before throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Can’t you guys just give it to me straight? Why does no one here speak normally? Like, okay. First it’s the fates, then it’s the whole sig -- seh -- zigzag shit, and then a sundrought, and -- _argh_! Just tell me what the _fuck_ is -- “

The lone fairy hurled itself at him and smacked him on the nose. It felt like he got pinched by a baby ladybug. “Wh -- hey! Did you just hit me?”

The fairy chittered and twirled around. 

“ _He̺͚̝̟ ̱m̞̺͇̥i̦̱̹͓̗̼̤s͖̻̤͝ͅs̛e̵͓̼̟ͅs̩̯̰ ̠̯͇̕y̼͔͓o̗̝̣͖̫ͅu͍̜̺̬_ ,” it said. “ _C̱̟om̳̞̭̳̗̠e̵ ̗͖̪̞f̲̥̦i̙̯̠͚n̨̝̥͚͇͚͍̼d̦̲͢ ̖̥͈̗̟̼͎͜h̦i͓̺͈̺̪͞m͓̻̘͡ ͈͎̯̰̭s͕̣̞̯̹̼͍ơ̠o̯̘̹̩̦͓͔͟n̗̕, H͞yun͏jinie҉._ ” 

“What?” Hyunjin stared at the fairy with his heart in his throat. His hands were trembling as he reached for the fairy, his voice lowered to a scratchy whisper, “He misses me?”

But the fairy flew back. With its dainty gold-crusted wings that fluttered one last time, it disappeared like the wispy florets of a dandelion.

☽

Days pass.

Hyunjin hadn’t been dreaming lately, mostly because he barely got to sleep. Restlessness crept up on him and snagged it away in the gibbous of night. All he could think of was the fairy that pushed him to the witch, dwelling somewhere in the hidden canals of Moondew, but Hyunjin couldn’t bring himself to ask Granny about it. Not yet, at least.

He distracted himself by fixing the cottage’s gate. He stayed in bed and ruminated over fading memories. He drank with Changbin some nights, talking about wispy dreams and mundane nothings. Hyunjin had admitted that he thought Changbin would leave for the city too; he was never as homebound as Hyunjin was, and Changbin has always been too free-spirited and brave to stay trapped in one place forever.

Changbin replied with a smile that softened his eyes. He sighed and stretched his arms over his head as he tilted his head up to look at the tarpaulin of stars. “As much as I want to leave, I can’t. At least, not yet. My heart’s tied to Moondew until everything is fixed.” 

He hadn’t elaborated on what “everything” was. Hyunjin wanted to ask, but Changbin shoved another beer into his hand and clunked their bottles together. 

Days pass. 

One night, Hyunjin kept his eyes wide open at the ceiling. The walls were painted with tides of the moonlight, and ironically enough, it shone directly against the moonstone that sat atop the surface of his bookshelf across the window. He could hear him, then -- Jisung’s young, cheerful voice that echoed from its pearl luster. 

A token of a summer memory, he had said. _You’re forever stuck with me. I won’t easily be gotten rid of!_

How funny it was, for love to be so short but forgetting to be so long. 

Hyunjin sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. He sat up and threw aside the covers. He put on his windbreaker, stared at the moonstone with a conflicted frown before he shoved it into his pocket. Then, he tiptoed downstairs and headed out for a midnight walk. 

It was cool and windy. Fireflies flickered among the bare wireframe of the trees. Hyunjin plodded down the road as his eyes swept across the barren lands, the moon hanging above his head like a blade sculpted out of marble. The lights were still on in the houses and cottages he passed by. 

Without thinking, he made his way to the fairy ring, his eyes lowered to the gravel he scraped with the soles of his shoes. He supposed he could never escape something that’d been such an integral part of his childhood. The fairies, the forest, the house at the end of the lane -- they were all part of his heart, even if it’d hurt him to the point of running away from Moondew in the first place. 

As he approached the forked path, he lifted his head up, only to freeze in his tracks.

A white stag.

It was there -- waiting by the fairy ring, with its ghostly eyes and glittering antlers. Hyunjin gaped at it before he rubbed his eyes and smacked his cheeks, wondering if he was merely dreaming, but the stag was unyielding. Hyunjin opted to pinch his arm until it was too painful to endure, but the stag was still there, pulling the moon towards it. 

“Well,” Hyunjin mumbled in awe, “shit.”

He was not dreaming. The white stag was real, it was real, and it was right in front of him -- until it wasn’t. 

“Hey!” he shouted after the white stag that took off to the forest of towering trees. Hyunjin looked around, jumping indecisively in place, before running after it like he’d done in his dream.

He trekked upon the naked earth and stumbled over ancient tree roots that punctured through the soil. The narrow path, made uneven by the knotted roots that crossed it, branched at intervals, and the bare branches spiked into the charcoal sky. There were red eyes blinking in the shadows, the shrill hoots of an owl perched somewhere high above him, and the cirrus of tangled voices grew like static in his ears. 

Hyunjin carried on aimlessly, pushing his way through the forest. He could feel the cuts on his cheeks and the scrapes on his knees from tripping. He was just about to give up, and maybe cry, when he saw a pool of moonlight peek through the thick clusters of trees from up ahead. 

Excitement and fear thrummed in his veins. He shoved his way through until he reached the clearing. It was the creek from his dreams. Before the glimmering water stood the white stag that waited by the logs, staring at Hyunjin as though it had expected him to arrive. 

“You,” he breathed, taking a hesitant step forward. “You were in my dreams.”

Hyunjin wasn’t sure what to expect. Half of his dreams consisted of the stag’s face turning into the face of a woman that came straight out of a supernatural horror movie, while the other half was mostly of the moon collapsing that brought down the whole sky. Hyunjin hid his trembling fists behind his back and willed his craven heart to prepare for the worst, but the stag remained motionless. It just stood there, twitching its nose, staring at Hyunjin with blank eyes. 

“Who are you?” Hyunjin asked, taking another step forward. “Why are you always in my dreams?”

He kneeled down before the stag and lifted his hand, letting it hover over the stag’s head. “Are you real?” he whispered. “Is _this_ real, right now?”

_“I’m real if you believe I’m real.”_

Hyunjin flinched at the voice of a child that tinkled over his head. He whipped his head around, calling out, “Jisung?”

He turned back to the stag when it nudged its head against his hand. As soon as they touched, Hyunjin found himself falling backwards into a tunnel of blackness. It felt like he was plummeting into the abyss for an eternity, his limbs immobilized, before a glaring whiteness washed over his eyes that had him squeezing them shut tight at the light. 

Then he was no longer in the forest. He was in the middle of an empty field now, with a single, golden chain tree glowing like the sun before him.

“Do you think I’ll ever get to see him again?”

And curled around the hearth of the tree -- was Jisung. 

There was a hurricane of thoughts inside of Hyunjin. His heart rate was accelerating so fast his heart might as well have leapt out of his ribcage and into the empty sky. His muscles were so tight that he couldn’t bring himself to take a step forward. He just stood there in shock, in disbelief, shaking like he was possessed by an otherworldly entity when it was merely the entity of grief. 

But then something nudged him from behind. It was the white, glowing stag pushing him forward.

“No. _No_. What is this?” he asked frantically. He fell onto his knees to keep himself from getting too close. Jisung was giggling with the fairies and seemingly unaware of Hyunjin’s presence. He was still the same baby-cheeked boy from eleven years ago. “Why is he so young?”

“ _M̫̣͇e͖̙͎m̦̫̘̩͉̲o̭͇͖̟͙ͅͅr͚y͉̦_ ,̩ͅ” it said.

Hyunjin barely had time to react to the stag talking to him for the first time since they encountered each other when a chorus of chitters tugged his attention away and back to Jisung. 

“You really think so, fairies?” Jisung whispered. “But he seemed to really hate me. He even stopped believing in me too. What should I do if he never stops hating me? I’ll be stuck here forever and he won’t be able to see me again. He’ll forget me too.”

The fairies flew around him; a few landed on his cheek and a few rested on his shoulders. Jisung sighed and curled into himself a bit tighter. “I miss him a lot. But he’ll be waiting for me, won’t he? He always waits because his heart is all soft and gooey, so it’s my turn to wait now! Yeah, I’ll wait for him no matter how long it takes!” 

Jisung laughed as the fairies agreed in their garbled voices and played with his hair. Hyunjin watched him, because that was all he could do, because that was all he learned to do since he was a cowardly child. His heart hurt so much he feared it might explode. 

The white stag stepped forward and nudged its nose against Hyunjin’s cheek. When they touched again, the young Jisung with his fairies faded. The laburnum tree slowly lost its glow like a lightbulb that blew a fuse, and now it was all black when it used to be golden. The grass beneath Hyunjin turned yellow and dry, and the flowers surrounding them had wilted and died. 

And then, there was Jisung, but he was different. He was old like Hyunjin, now. His large shirt finally fit him and his hair had grown wavy and messy. But there was something missing -- something lackluster. His back leaned against the trunk of the burned out tree and a lone fairy perched itself on to his nose. 

“Ah, I’m so sleepy,” he murmured, and it surprised Hyunjin to hear how low and mature his voice sounded, now. “Will you let me sleep for a few more days? I’m just so tired.”

The fairy zipped around Jisung’s face. Jisung managed a weak smile and closed his eyes. “I’ll just sleep. Sleeping counts as waiting, right? I can do that forever.” 

Hyunjin looked at the white stag. “What’s happening?”

“ _F̪̟̰̤o̗r̪̞g͕̣͍o̮̩̗t̙̖̳̱t̪ḛ̘̖n̮_ ,” it replied hollowly. “ _U̜͈͖ͅn̺͖̙͔l̟͍͕͎̗͉̩o͎̹͉̪͎͎v͔͔̜͕̣̱̻e͇d̫̩͈.͉_ ”

“I -- I don’t understand. What does that have to do with -- ”

It stared at him. “ _Ỵ͙͖̩̘o̙̺̦̦̪u͖͔_.”

Hyunjin blinked at the white stag in growing confusion before he looked back at Jisung, only to find that the fairy disappeared and Jisung was fading. He looked so transparent, so ghost-like. _A ghost that doesn’t even know that it's dead._ Hyunjin wanted to swallow all those words he’d spoken back down his throat and stuff it into his box instead. 

“Why is he fading,” he whispered, scrambling towards Jisung who was asleep against the tree. He crouched before his sleeping figure and gingerly held out a hand, letting it linger above his cheek, untouching. “Hannie.”

The white stag stepped beside him. Even if it was a phantom, Hyunjin could still see the melancholy in the blank slate of its eyes. 

“ _W̼i̪̹̘͓t͎̭͎̜c̞̜̲̟͈h̰̳̫̞̫_ ,” was the last thing it said before it took him back down the tunnel into the abyss. 

Then Hyunjin woke up.

Not in his bedroom, but in the fairy ring. He saw the night sky and the stretch of stars among the blue-grey clouds, and the moon that dangled in its deep silver mist. 

Hyunjin sat up with a hitched breath, eyes frantically searching across the meadow when he spotted the white stag staring at him from between the trees of the forest, before it turned around and disappeared into the shadows. Hyunjin blinked at it, wondering if it was a dream, but then he looked down at his scraped knees and the cuts on his arms and realized it wasn’t a dream. It was very much real. 

Han Jisung was very much real, too -- waiting, waiting, _waiting_ at the hearth of that sundrought tree. Waiting, sleeping, forgetting. 

There was pain in his chest. His pomegranate heart was cracking open and spilling seeds all over the floor -- an ache that never stopped growing. Hyunjin hadn’t felt this much hurt since eleven years ago but he hadn’t been the only one hurting. He was so young, so selfish and cowardly, and Hyunjin could feel his face crumpling when he scrambled to his feet and ran back to the cottage.

He needed to find the witch. 

At the cottage, he realized he’d locked himself out, so he unabashedly pounded his fist against the door until it creaked with the warning of breaking. After the nth time of almost knocking the entire door down, it finally opened, and Granny stood there with a very unhappy, very grumpy expression with her long hair tucked into a purple nightcap. 

“What in the God’s name is -- “

“The witch,” Hyunjin gasped sharply, his chest was heaving, and it took him a second to realize he’d been crying the entire journey back. “I need the witch.”

Granny’s expression immediately changed into that of concern as she cupped his face into her wrinkly, gentle hands. “Oh, poor boy,” she murmured as he wiped away his tears with the pads of her thumbs. “My poor, sweet boy.”

“I need -- I need to -- I need to find the witch. _Please_. I saw him, Granny. I _saw_ him and it’s all my fault but I -- but I don’t know _who_ or _where_ and -- _fuck_. Granny, I don’t know _anything_ ,” Hyunjin sobbed out and squeezed his eyes shut when his voice had cracked. “I did my best to forget everything that happened here! I grew up quickly and moved away and found a job -- _everything_ that an adult was supposed to do, because adults always knew everything, didn’t they? But I’m not an adult. I still don’t know anything. But why? Why don’t I know? Why am I so _unworthy_ to know the truth? Why?”

Granny’s eyes flickered upwards to the moon. He folded in half when she brought him to her chest and rubbed soothing circles on his back; it might have looked comical, but he’d missed being small enough to be held by someone who was safe like his Granny. “Sweet pea, you’re not unworthy. You are so much more than what you think you are.” Her hand traveled to the back of his head, petting him gently like she used to do when he was a kid. “How could you ever think that? I’d smack some sense into you if you weren’t such a mess at the moment.”

Hyunjin didn’t answer. He didn’t know how long they stood there, with Granny comforting him in silence as he cried into her nightgown. After a while, his cries finally subsided into tiny sniffles when he calmed down, and she withdrew from their hug. Granny cradled his face in her frail, strong hands, forcing Hyunjin to look at her in the eyes. “You’re ready, my sweet boy. If you must find the witch right at this very moment, then let me help you.”

Hyunjin wiped at his tear stained cheeks that stung from the cuts. His entire body was wrung out by the emotional disposal, and everywhere ached so bad he felt as though he’d collapse any second. “Granny?”

Her eyes glowed silver, for a moment. And when she opened her mouth, it wasn’t her raspy voice, but the sound of the fairies:

 _“I am the black of eye,  
my feet firmly in the ground.  
I turn my face to the sun  
and follow it around._

_When I am dead and gone,  
I will droop real low,  
I will keep the birds well fed,  
standing stiff there in my row.”_

Granny leaned in. “ _What am I?_ ”

“What -- what does that -- “

“You must figure it out yourself. I am not allowed to tell you,” she said. “So think. Think with that city brain of yours.”

Puzzled, Hyunjin sniffled and used the hem of his shirt to wipe the snot away from his nose. He was too tired to react badly at the riddle. All the anger drained out of him through his tears, so this time, he tried to understand instead rather than react out of frustration. He shut his eyes and listened to Granny repeat the riddle again as he stewed over the answer. 

“Turn towards the sun,” he muttered. 

Hyunjin thought of the lone fairy, then -- how it used its golden dust to trace out an image of a flower with broad, overlapping petals on a tall, long stalk. He thought of the memory the white stag had shown him of Jisung laughing at the hearth of the laburnum tree, which had once burned like a thousand stars during that late summer day when Hyunjin had been shown a sun illusion. But the sun illusion had only been possible because of the -- 

“Sunflowers,” he whispered. 

Hyunjin blinked slowly. He stared at Granny, who looked a bit less human and a bit more magical in the moonlight. She wore a steady smile of approval at his answer and opened her mouth, but Hyunjin didn’t hear, because he was already running. 

He was out of the cottage and the neighborhood within seconds and his feet were pounding against the tarmac as he fled down the road. He should have realized it sooner. He could have, if he hadn’t been blinded by his own emotions. But he remembered the unsettling smile and the dark eyes that had met Hyunjin’s when he’d caught him talking with Jisung that day, and of course -- _of course_ , the Lee’s only son would know something. 

The sunflower maze full of wistful memories finally came into view, along with the Lee’s relic of a house. Hyunjin skidded to a halt at their old, patinated gate covered in vines of dead flowers. The sunflowers were all dead and drooping, matching the house’s eerie demeanor of moss-covered walls and overgrown leaves shaped into a canopy. 

Hyunjin wiped his sweaty face with his arm, wincing at the cuts, and caught his breath. He ducked underneath a drape of vines that curled around the top of the gate, and walked past a dried up pond ensconced by rocks. At the door, he rang the bell and waited restlessly for an answer, hoping that the witch hadn’t gone to town to prepare for the festival too. 

But then the door swung open, and standing there was none other than Lee Minho. 

“Mr. Hwang,” he greeted. His expression was unaffected, almost calculative, and his eyes were black like two pristine stones of onyx that reflected a blue hue when touched by the moonlight. “How can I help you during this time of the night?”

Now that Hyunjin was there, he was at a loss of words. He wasn’t sure how to approach the topic. What if Minho wasn’t the witch? It’d be rude to assume he was. He’d cause his grandma grief if he insulted one of the families she so often traded herbs and oils with. Hyunjin chewed at his bottom lip and wrung his wrists. “Well. Um. Hey. Sorry to bother you, uh. I’m not sure how to say this? The thing is -- well -- “

Minho raked him from head to toe with his eyes before he turned on his heel and went back inside the house. “Come in,” he called. 

Hyunjin blinked. He took a hesitant step forward.

The interior of the house was completely different from its exterior. It was clean and decorated in drapes and tassels of deep reds and browns that hung from the cinnabar-coloured walls with charms plastered on them, and Ziegler rugs that extended across the halls. There were a myriad of succulents that took up space at any available surface, and there was an incense burning near the entrance of the door. 

He toed off his shoes and meekly followed after Minho into the warm living room. He was beckoned to take a seat at the couch by a dainty, wooden table with an empty vase while he disappeared into the kitchen.

Now that Hyunjin thought about it, this was the very first time they’ve ever properly talked to each other. 

Minho reemerged from the kitchen with a tea tray after a while, setting it down on the table. He picked up the Gorgian teapot and poured rose tea into a cup and placed it in front of Hyunjin on a saucer. There was a globe-shaped bowl containing cream and sugar. 

“Thanks,” Hyunjin murmured, watching the smoke of the hot tea curl into the air. He looked up to find Minho staring at him, so he stared back. They stared at each other until Hyunjin started to sweat underneath his gaze. “I -- is something on my face?”

“Yes. Many things, in fact,” Minho said.

“Oh. Right.”

“I suppose we should drop the small talk. I’ve been told that’s how you establish civility but I’m sure neither of us are a fan of it.” He leaned back and crossed his legs. “I know why you’re here.”

Hyunjin frowned. “You do?”

“In fact, I’ve been waiting for you, Mr. Hwang.”

“You have?”

“Yes.” Minho’s lips twitched. “You’ve come for the sun.”

Hyunjin shut his eyes to regain his composure. Then, he took a deep breath and spoke in the most quiet, polite tone he could muster in that moment, “I really, _really_ cannot deal with more riddles. So, explain to me. Please. I’ve been kept under the dark for so long. I wouldn’t have known to come here if it weren’t for the -- “

“The fairy,” Minho guessed. He leaned forward and rested his elbow on his knee. “The fairy came to tell you. And then it was the Moon Spirit who took you to that memory realm, and showed you what was becoming of your beloved sun. Yes, I know. I’m a witch, Mr. Hwang. I know of the creatures you’ve seen. I’ve spoken to them myself.”

Hyunjin swallowed loudly. It felt like he was still trying to catch his breath from running so long. His back was pulled tight like a bowstring. 

“As you know, the fairies are more than the creatures you hear in folklore. They are the fae of the sun: loyal followers and enchanters of light. And just like the faes, the Moon Spirit -- who lingers in the forest alongside the night creatures -- are followers of the moon. The Moon Spirit had not appeared in decades, so his form is still unstable. That is why he shows up in your dream as a woman, sometimes, when he gets his form wrong.”

Minho paused. He lifted his hands and pressed his forefingers together. “Have you still not connected the dots?”

Hyunjin bit the inside of his cheek until he could taste blood. Minho took that as an answer and continued on.

“The sun is a lonely star, don’t you think? Whenever the sun comes out to see the moon, it disappears. And, well. Mr. Han knew that I was a witch who used plants as a medium. He wanted to use the sunflowers because the maze was a threshold, and once you’ve crossed the threshold, you’re in the world that was wished upon by the requester.” 

Minho picked up his cup of tea, bringing it to his mouth to take a small sip. “But that day, when you saw us together, he was telling me to maintain the illusion for as long as possible, because he knew the sundrought would happen one day. After all, he found you when you were still too young -- too volatile, and he knew you would push him away. The fates showed him how this would all play out and he had to abide by it, even if it meant being forgotten by the only person he loves.”

The world was spinning and spinning and the ground beneath him was tilting over. The sunflowers, the sundrought, and the memory of the older Jisung sleeping against the trunk of the dead chain tree flickered before Hyunjin’s eyes. The link between the sun and Jisung was so overwhelming that Hyunjin felt his chest almost burst. 

“Do you get it now?” asked Minho.

“He’s the sun,” he rasped. “Jisung is the sun.”

Minho finally smiled.

🌣 ☽

_Gods existed, once._

 _The Sun King, Yongbok, was the divine harbinger of life and light, draped in all gold silk and blood-red gemstones, harnessing fire that burned as powerful as the cosmos. Legends say he was the embodiment of the sun and that he had no concrete form, merely an outline of hot, fiery light; others say he resembled his fae creatures, with iridescent hair and gold dust that fell from his eyelashes and onto speckled cheeks._

_The opposing force to his existence, on the other hand, was The Moon King, Chan -- divine harbinger of death and eternity, all in silver robes and icy feathers, commanding the stars and lunar tides. A mysterious phantasm that never revealed its true form, merely watching through the eyes of its strange creatures in the ribbons of light amidst perpetual darkness._

_They were Gods. They were destined to be apart -- to never meet, like perpendicular lines and twin primes._

_But they were also in love._

_Because of their preordained elements that juxtaposed each other, they were never able to meet as they were. For eons, they relied on the Morning Star to catch glimpses of each other, but when one rose the other fell -- an eternal, cosmic rhythm that brought control to the universe’s ways but grief for each other._

_The Gods could not endure it anymore. That was when they decided to meet in a different way._

🌣 ☽

Hyunjin stared at the sunflowers.

_“Moonchild, moonchild,” Minho sung, “where will you go?”_

Turbulence and confusion melded together into a storm within his chest. He had reserved a moment’s worth of time to have another meltdown outside of the witch’s house, but after that, as the moonflowers unfurled in his presence and the stars lent their warmth to his body, he felt peace. Understanding. Maybe crazy.

Hyunjin looked up at the moon that winked down on him. He basked in the cold, shimmering moonlight, before he stepped forward into the sunflower maze. 

The sunflowers were all dead and rotting but Hyunjin forced himself through the crowd as he went off-trail. He followed the north star in the cascading, night sky, body shaking as though he was freezing in the winter. Through the stalks of the sunflowers, he heard the rustles of the moon creatures that followed alongside with him -- the running, white stag, and the leaping, red-eyed rabbits that carried the moon.

🌣 ☽

_Before falling into eternal slumber, the Sun and Moon King detached a piece of themselves into the form of disembodied souls, and sent them down to earth so that they may have the chance to be together where they may begin their lives as humans with old and new memories. A reincarnation, of sorts. The sun fae and moon creatures followed them as they did from the very beginning and to the very end._

_But the Primordial did not like that Sun and Moon were cheating the cosmos and the fates for their own greed. He was enraged at the disloyalty. Thus, the Primordial separated the trajectory of their souls plummeting down to earth, and caused the Moon to lose all of its memories of the past, leaving the Sun as the sole bearer of both their lives._

_The moon creatures lamented over their God. They watched as an old kitchen witch discovered their God in the clearings of a forest, and raised the Moon with her gentle hands and knowing eyes. She loved the Moon like he was her own son, all bright-eyed and tender-hearted, curious at the strange tug of connection he felt for the moon and the stars._

_But as the Moon was nurtured by the hands of an old maiden, the Sun was left alone._

🌣 ☽

The north star brought him home.

Hyunjin pushed past through the last of the tall sunflowers and stumbled forward into the sun illusion from eleven years ago, except now, he was swimming in a field of wilted wheat, and there were no suns apparent in the sky -- merely a cloudy, murky grey. The barn still stood in the distance with a dried up rivulet. The stark, ancient trees of the forest still towered like giants that reached past the sky. 

“Where could he be?” Hyunjin asked, mostly to himself, but then he felt a slight nudge against the back of his hand, and looked down. 

The white stag stared up at him, tilting its head almost judgmentally. 

“Right. Stupid question,” he grumbled. “Shut up.”

He yelped when the stag rammed into his side with its antlers.

🌣 ☽

_The Sun remembered. He knew of the Moon, dwelling somewhere among the moon-splashed crevices of the earth, and travelled far and wide to find him with the help of the faes. When the Moon found him in the fairy ring one summer day, by chance, the Sun believed that they could finally stay together and no longer be apart._

 _But the Moon did not remember him._

_He did not remember the Sun, who he was or who they were, so the more the Moon’s faith in the Sun wavered, the more the Sun faded. Because, after all -- when something was forgotten and unloved and no longer believed in, they began to disappear as though they’ve never existed in the first place._

_The Sun had made a mistake in finding the Moon too early when the Moon was still so young and easy to hurt and prone to misunderstand. But the Sun did not leave his side, because he loved the Moon, and came to love the Moon as his own, sentient person, and not as a fragment of the God he was born from._

_And even as the Moon left and the Sun grieved and grieved, the Sun vowed to still love and believe in the Moon, no matter if he faded away like a ghost in his slumber._

🌣 ☽

Hyunjin tried to retrace their steps as children when he walked through the forest.

He hopped over roots before his feet could snag onto them. The witch had cleaned up his wounds earlier with an ointment that had closed up the cuts, leaving only faint, white marks that would fade in a couple of days. Minho was eccentric in the sense that he spoke and presented himself in an unaffected, cold manner, yet the surprise in his eyes when Hyunjin pulled him into a hug revealed the softness of his dainty features. 

Minho had been watching over the both of them all this time, even when he was handed the sunflower maze to oversee when his father passed away at an early age. He was there for Jisung when he seemed to have no one to turn to, and he was there for Hyunjin, who had dug up his graveyard of memories and demanded answers. 

Maybe, when everything ended, Hyunjin could find a way to repay him. 

Hyunjin slowed down to a halt when he felt the emptiness by his sides. He looked over his shoulder where the moon creatures had stopped a few feet behind him, watching his back. Always there, even when unseen. His heart thrummed along to the beat of the brave, no longer the coward it’d been years. He turned back around, and continued on his way. 

It didn’t take long for him to recognize the path he was trekking on. He skipped over dead moonstone flowers and spotted a wooden bridge that dandled over an empty lake. And as Hyunjin continued further into the heart of the forest, he finally stopped in front of the golden chain tree that withered within its own, rotting light, scented with summery memories barely threaded together in his fingers.

And in the hearth of the tree, was Jisung. 

It was just like Hyunjin had seen in the memory the white stag had shown him. Jisung was sleeping against the trunk of the laburnum tree, eyes closed peacefully with an uncharacteristically pale complexion. 

Something churned in his gut. Hyunjin gripped the ends of his jacket and slowly -- quietly, approached the sleeping sunchild. 

“Hey,” he whispered, kneeling down in front of Jisung with shaking hands. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”

Hyunjin gnawed at his bottom lip when he felt his nose prickle. His aching heart was pounding in his ears. He’d already cried so much; he didn’t think he’d have any tears left. “Hey, Hannie. _Hannie_. Han Jisung. Hey, you idiot. You can stop waiting now. You don’t have to wait anymore, because I finally found you.” He leaned forward and gently cradled the sides of Jisung’s barely solid face, and whispered, “Wake up, Hannie. The moon’s out. I’ve come to take you back home.”

There was a beat of silence. Then, the tree flickered to life. 

It was gradual, slow -- as light began to reenter the hanging drapery of the trees that circled them in its shadows. Like a flame that had been rekindled, the golden chain tree burned gold and bright once again, like that summer many years ago when it’d stood in the grand centre of the dreamscape with determined brilliance. 

The gilded light dived down from the crown of the tree and washed over the earth beneath them, stirring the flowers from its drooped posture into a slow unravel as they bloomed to the warm kiss of the suns that shone in the cleared up sky. The whispers of running waters and the chorus of birds returned to the verdant heart of the forest. 

Everything thrummed with life and light, as if a curse had been lifted. 

A strip of sunlight peeked through golden foliage. Hyunjin was watching Jisung with his heart hammering in his ears and a knot forming in his throat. He was watching as Jisung’s gossamer figure began to solidify until he was concrete to touch -- until Hyunjin could feel his soft cheeks that squished beneath his hands. And he was watching, even as Jisung began to stir from his sleep. 

“Go away, ugly fairies,” Jisung mumbled. Hyunjin retracted his hands before he could be touched when Jisung swatted blindly at the air. “Lemme sleep for another five minutes.”

“Five minutes is still far too long,” Hyunjin croaked, his voice thick with tears. “Jisung.” 

Jisung stilled. Then, he slowly opened his eyes, and he was looking at Hyunjin. Seeing him. Believing him. In the faint halo of the sunlight, Hyunjin could see the flash of liquid gold in his dark eyes, warm and so, so bright. His mouth stretched into a wide grin that reached his ears and he surged forward to cup Hyunjin’s face with strong, warm hands. 

“You’re here!” he laughed, bringing their foreheads together. “You’ve found me!”

Hyunjin could barely process how close Jisung was to him, more so the fact he was laughing wholeheartedly like he wasn’t on the verge of disappearing forever mere minutes ago. But most of all, he hadn’t realized how much he truly _missed_ him, because Jisung was so, so warm and soft and his childlike laughter brought a tender ache in his chest that had his face crumpling again.

He clutched the collar of Jisung’s shirt tightly, willing his hands to stop shaking. But he feared if he opened his mouth, a cry would come out instead of words.

“Whoa, you grew up so much!” Jisung exclaimed as he leaned back to take a better look at Hyunjin’s face. “I mean, I grew up too, duh. But it was kinda hard to imagine how you’d grow up too, but not bad, Hyunjinie! You’re a lot prettier than I remember.” He grinned and wiped a tear away from his cheek. “But why’re you crying? Were the boys from school mean to you again?”

It was not a cry, nor were it words, but what came out of his mouth instead was a string of incoherent apologies. “I’m -- I’m so -- I’m so sorry, Jisung, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Jisung, so sorry I’m so -- “

“Hey, hey, why’re you apologizing?” 

Out of frustration, Hyunjin smacked him on the shoulder. “You _know_ why!”

“Because I disappeared? But that’s not your fault,” Jisung said, genuinely confused. He rolled down his sleeves and used them to wipe at Hyunjin’s snotty, tear-stained face. “If anything, I’m the one who should be sorry for breaking my promise.”

“Promise?”

“I promised I wouldn’t disappear again, even though I knew it’d happen since I couldn’t tell you everything.”

Hyunjin gritted his teeth. “You could have trusted me. We could have -- if you just _trusted_ \-- “

“Your heart’s a little gooey, you know,” Jisung laughed quietly, poking him on the left side of the chest, making him stop in the middle of his words. “I know you care so much about what other people think that you’re willing to bend just enough to make them happy, because you want them to like you. I knew if I told you who we really were, you’d force yourself to try and have the same feelings for me because you didn't want to hurt me. And that wasn’t okay at all.”

Hyunjin ducked his head down, but Jisung brought his head back up and beamed at him. “You’ve grown up to be your own person, Hyunjin. This is your life! You decide which paths to take, not your predecessor. And if, in this life, you don’t love the Sun, then that’s okay. Chan would think it’s okay too. I’ll love you and believe in you for the both of us!”

“Why?” Hyunjin jerked away from him and stood up to take a few steps back. “Why do you love and believe in me so much? What if -- what if I wasn’t the Moon? What if I was just a normal kid, and your Moon was out there somewhere else? Would you still feel the same way, then?”

“Of course,” Jisung answered easily, his eyes wide in wonder, and it startled Hyunjin at how much belief he had.

“How do you know that?”

“I just do.” 

“But _why_?”

“Because you’re so easy to love!” Jisung proclaimed confidently as he stood up to put his arms akimbo, only to grasp for the tree trunk to balance himself when he stumbled. Hyunjin leapt forward and held his arms, seeing that he was still weak from sleeping so long. But Jisung wasn’t unnerved by his own words, his own feelings, and he dissolved into shy laughter. “What’s there not to love about you, Hyunjin?”

Hyunjin whispered, “You’re just saying that.”

“Because I’m the Sun? Nah, ‘cause I learned a lot from you, and one of the things I learned was to be myself -- as Han Jisung, and not some piece of a Sun God. I’ll always be Han Jisung first. And right now, I’m saying that I love you as Han Jisung! Even if Han Jisung wasn’t the Sun, he’d still love you, too.”

Jisung looked at him with so much fondness and affection that Hyunjin’s chest might burst. He might faint. He might go crazy if he hadn’t already. The sun never asked for anything in return, and some part of Hyunjin hated that, because he couldn’t understand how somebody could be so selfless and thoughtful and stupid within the same body. 

But it was Jisung, the boy with the soft, rosy cheeks with light flecks of freckles across his nose, doe-like eyes beaming with curiosity and wonder to the world that Hyunjin grew up in. It was Jisung, standing there as he was, smiling at Hyunjin like he hadn’t been in pain and alone for all these years, and that waiting had been worth it -- that _Hyunjin_ had been worth waiting for. 

In the distance, the moon began to rise along the sun. 

“Idiot,” he laughed wetly. “And I love you, as Hwang Hyunjin.”

With the weight of the moonstone in his pocket, gunk in his nose and tears in his eyes, he grabbed Jisung into a tight hug and buried himself into the neverending warmth of the sun.

🌣 ☽

“And the sun returns,” Minho drawled as he breathed in the roses that’d rebloomed around his gate, only to choke on a fly that probably flew up his nostril. “Oh, that was unpleasant.”

“Moondew’s back to normal,” Hyunjin murmured, looking around the area. The sunflowers were standing tall and strong, their faces turned to the bright sun that was shining in the clear, blue sky with drifting clouds and sweeping contrails. The pastures were green and verdant, the fields all plush with bright flowers and wheat, and there were crops already growing along the rows of the farmlands. 

“Dude,” Jisung said, “is that you, Minho?”

“The one and only in the -- _ow_.”

Jisung had rammed into him with arms open. He clung to Minho and jumped in the spot, bringing Minho up and down with him. “You’ve grown up so much too! Do you have plants that talk now? I remember you mentioned you wanted plants who could hex people, which is like, _totally_ a great idea, by the way. Wait. Or did you do that with the sunflowers? Man, your house still looks like crockshit. God, I missed swearing. Crockshit, crockshit, crock -- “

Minho pinched his nose bridge before vehemently shooing them away. “Since when were you so chatty?”

“Since I became real again.”

“You’ve always been real,” Hyunjin said, nudging his shoulder. “Everybody loves the sun.”

Minho darted his black eyes between them before vehemently shooing them away. “Okay, none of that near me. Go away, now. The festival’s over so everybody should be back. I have plants to take care of and cats to feed.”

Jisung planted a wet smooch on Minho’s cheek that had the witch staggering and falling onto his bed of flowers out of shock. “Love you, dude!” He jogged up to meet Hyunjin’s strides and intertwined their hands. “It feels so good to walk out here, again. I missed the people here. Is Granny still alive?”

“I can’t believe you asked me that.”

Jisung blinked. “Wait. She’s dead?”

“No!” Hyunjin tugged him forward and walked faster down the tarmac road. “She’s alive and well and very magical, apparently. Hey, is everyone here magical? That’d explain a lot of things.”

“Well, kinda. You still don’t know?” 

“Know what?”

“They’re the Crux,” Jisung explained, swinging their arms back and forth in large sweeps. “The constellation. Your friends, I mean. Minho too. They followed you down here to look after you and anything that could cause you bodily harm, because everyone thought Chaos would do more than just separate us.”

Hyunjin thought of the ribbon of silver in Changbin’s eyes, the knowing sharpness in the way Seungmin watched him, and Jeongin’s questionable walks at night that had him scouting every acre of the alley. They were tied to Moondew because of _Hyunjin_. 

“My friends are stars,” he intoned. 

“Yup.” Jisung grinned. “This is exciting, isn’t it? I can finally meet them since everything’s done. Also, I’m starving, so let’s go go _go_ , slowpoke!”

Hyunjin watched in amusement as he hopped around. “You’re just buzzing with energy, aren’t you?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I’ve been hibernating for literally eleven years.”  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

Granny took one look at Jisung, then at Hyunjin, then glanced up at the sky, before back down at them. “About time that damn eclipse happened. Everybody in town cheered like they nabbed a bunch of fresh corn in time.”

Hyunjin sheepishly dug his heel into the ground while Jisung beamed up at Granny. “I’ve missed your cooking so much, Granny,” he chirped, probably charming his way back into her heart. “Your porridge with blackberry jam was one of the best things I have ever eaten in my entire life -- including the life up there, and before the life down here. Will you make me some again?”

“Flattery will get you nowhere boy, especially when you killed my garden,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “But because you’ve been imprisoned for quite some time, I’ll make this an exception. I will not be cooking with my disastrous son around, however. The Kim’s and Yang’s are back, and so is that Bin boy. Now, shoo!”

The both of them hurriedly rushed out of the cottage gates, Granny’s garden now back to full bloom. Hyunjin saw his friends talking amongst themselves outside of the Kim’s white picket fence, and he called out to them. All three of them turned around and maniacally waved, with Seungmin jumping onto Changbin’s back to make himself higher and more seen. 

“There’s no way they’re stars, Hannie,” Hyunjin whispered. “They’re just a bunch of pseudo-country dweebs.”

Jisung sent him a puzzled look. “Pseudo-country? Is that a new genre of country rock?”

Hyunjin didn’t get to reply when Seungmin was pulling him into a hug. He was smiling, flecks of silver dancing in the darks of his eyes, and Jeongin too, who threw his arms around Hyunjin and squished their cheeks together. Changbin hugged Hyunjin the longest, patting him square on the back as he muttered proud words into Hyunjin’s ear that had his chest glowing warm and fuzzy.

“You guys,” Hyunjin began, but stopped, because he was suddenly unsure of what to say. “You -- you guys knew?”

“Yeah,” Seungmin said in the most casual tone possible, “we’re stars. You know, the little celestial bodies you see up in the sky most of the time? I’m Becrux. I have an apparent magnitude of 1.30 and am approximately 350 light years distant from the solar system.” He turned to Jisung, eyeing him from head to toe. “Why’s the Sun so short?”

Cue the next few minutes of Jisung chatting up a storm and chasing after Seungmin with a stick. Jeongin joined in the hunting party when he found a large log and carried it with him with seemingly murderous intentions. Changbin looked like he was slowly aging the more he watched the three of him, his arms crossed against his chest. 

Hyunjin tucked his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “So. You’re a star.”

“I’m your best friend, above all things,” he corrected seamlessly, and Hyunjin couldn’t help but smile. “We all are. We, you know, had a celestial obligation, but like you -- like Jisung -- we all grew up to be our own persons and had the chance to form genuine bonds with other people. Clearly, _I_ had a lot of fun growing up.” He muttered wryly, before letting out a sigh. He threw an arm around Hyunjin’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you.”

“I’m not angry,” he reassured. “Maybe if I knew, like, five years earlier, I’d get super angry, but I’m -- I think I grew up. Didn’t I?”

Changbin grinned. “You grew up in the best way ever.” 

His heart swelled, and he ducked his head laughing. “Hey. Does this mean you guys can finally leave Moondew?”

“Mhm. I’m not sure about the other guys. Hell, maybe I’ll take them with me. But I, for one, would like to see the city.” Changbin stretched his arms wide and looked up at the warm sky with closed eyes. “It’d be nice to see more of the world.”

Hyunjin smiled and looked back at the three running around.

Yeah. It’d be nice.

🌣 ☽

When all three of them returned back to their homes, Hyunjin and Jisung wandered down the path to the meadow.

The sun was beginning to set, smothering the sky in hazy oranges and pinks. Past the pampas grass and green-gold fields, they spotted the rowan tree, and Hyunjin dragged Jisung towards the fairy ring where they sat down in the middle once more. Hyunjin could taste the sweet nostalgia in the air -- just like the good old days, where before sunset, they would wait for the fairies within the circle and talk about all sorts of things to waste time.

“Wow. I’m surprised it’s still here,” Jisung said as he sifted his hand through the dark green grass. His eyes glowed amber in the sun. “Can you believe this is where everything started? You and me, I mean.”

Their shoulders touched. “Yeah. I can believe it.”

Jisung grinned. He plucked a daisy from the grass and lifted it up like a precious stone. “Shall we make flower crowns?”

Hyunjin sighed fondly. “Okay.”

He fell into a comfortable routine of collecting wildflowers for Jisung to do the weaving, and after a few minutes of warm silence, Jisung asked, “Did you ever write a book yet, Hyunjin? I’ve always wondered, because I told you I’d be the first one to buy it. It’d suck if you did and I couldn’t even go near it.”

“No, I -- don’t worry about it. I haven’t published anything. I’ve had something in the works, but I stopped because I kinda gave up on it,” he admitted sheepishly. “But I know what I want to write, now. A children’s book.”

“Oooh. What will it be about?”

“That’s for me to know and for you to find out.”

Jisung scoffed. “Okay, party pooper. Fine. Be that way.” 

Hyunjin nudged him in the side with an elbow. Jisung stuck his tongue out and then yelled out in indignation when something flew to his eyelid. Something soft brushed against Hyunjin’s cheek, and he almost went cross-eyed as he tried to look at the fairy floating close to him. 

There were many of them, this time. The golden chorus of fairies fluttered around them in playful enthusiasm, and Hyunjin could hear the warbled sounds of tittering as they surrounded Jisung, who was growing red by the second as he petulantly swatted at them with the flowers gripped in his hands. 

“Shut up, you stupid flies!” Jisung complained. “All you fae do is get my blood boiling!”

“What are they saying?” Hyunjin frowned.

“Nothing! They’re just teasing me and being a bunch of busybodies and asking me to spill details! Like, don’t they have better things to do, like keeping a look out for a literally angry embodiment of the universe -- _ow_!”

Hyunjin watched Jisung get attacked by a swarm of angry fairies, but he noticed one wandering idly about in front of him. Though they were the size of the tiny stars that were seen from below, Hyunjin could immediately identify the lone fairy as the one who had appeared the day he first arrived at Moondew. Without the fairy, Hyunjin wouldn’t have gone to Minho, and he wouldn’t have found Jisung. And Jisung would have disappeared, forgotten and unloved.

He looked to where the forest was. In the distance, the white stag watched them from afar alongside other creatures of the forest, icy feathers hanging from its bine stems of antlers, its eyes glowing more warmly than before. Hyunjin smiled at it, before he looked back at the fairy.

He stuck out a hand. The fairy saw that as an invitation to land on top of his palm. Hyunjin brought his hand closer, raising it to his eyes, and murmured, “Thank you.”

He received a high-pitched chitter as a response. 

Gold dust lingered on Jisung’s cheeks and hair after the indignant fairies finally spared him. Jisung huffed and tried to tame his wild hair, before laughing when one of the fairies got tangled in the strands from trying to help him out. 

The world was bathed in his radiant laugh that wrestled itself into Hyunjin’s mind, and his eyes skimmed over the cardinal line of the earth where the glorious sun burned ever so brightly behind the coral mountains. 

Hyunjin wouldn’t have ever thought that this was where he would be right now -- that their small hands pressed onto the concrete and copper wires in the past would exist today with their hands pressed against each other instead.

All this time, he’d pondered the great mystery behind Han Jisung, when it had all been so simple. Jisung was the sun, the child or piece or remnant of a God, the harbinger of light and life, the caster of sun illusions in a maze of sunflowers, but to Hyunjin -- Han Jisung was merely a simple boy whom he fell in love with eleven years ago. 

The fairies swirled above their heads. Jisung dusted off the gold grains from his shoulder and held up the flower crown to Hyunjin. 

“Hey, hey. Do you remember? As kids?” Jisung gave a gummy smile, a twinkle in his eye as he raised the finished crown to place over the top of Hyunjin’s head. “Hwang Hyunjin! The king of the fairy ring --” he swung his arm in a grand, wide sweep, “-- the lover of the sun.” 

It made sense now, he thought. He snorted at the cheesiness, but he plucked the crown off from his head and reached over to place the flower crown over Jisung’s anyway. Then, his hand slides down to frame the side of his face, cradling the warmth of his cheek.

“Han Jisung. The king of my heart,” Hyunjin whispered, leaning forward to press a kiss to the tip of his nose, and laughed. “The lover of the moon.”

_Never step into a fairy ring, or it will bring you bad luck._

And for once in her life, Granny was wrong, and Hyunjin proved it by showing her the very sun in his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] i initially wanted chan and felix to feature as their spirits but i realized that'd drag the story way too long when this universe i created only works as a one/two shot, so i just kept them as the sun + moon fable :D chan was supposed to be the white stag, and felix was supposed to be the fairy that showed up in the fairy ring and hinted at the witch. spirit guides!!  
> (origin stories are so hard so i am sorry if it was confusing T__T i guess that's how magic realism is ???)
> 
> [2] i didn't want to infodump through the story but the syzygy festival is for the long-awaited eclipse a.k.a hyunsung's reunion (JUST IN CASE THAT WAS UNCLEAR)
> 
> [3] granny is a kitchen witch :D she's not really a celestial being, but more so aware of hyunjin's circumstances and involved in the whole getting them together thing in accordance to the fates 
> 
> [4] some hcs i had for after the end of the fic is that  
> \- changbin does eventually move to the city along with jeongin  
> \- seungmin and minho stay behind (former for his family business, the latter for his sunflowers and cats)  
> \- hyunjin moves back to moondew and works at the town's bookstore while writing (in which he'd publish a children's book in the future of the same title and plot as the fic . coughs >___>)  
> \- jisung is a stellar boy and fixes up the house at the end of the lane to which he and hyunjin begin to live in together later on in their lives ! they're left alone by universe and live quite happily ever after :D
> 
> SCREECHES THANK U FOR READING  
> here is my [twit twat](https://twitter.com/suncygnus)

**Author's Note:**

> next chapter will have a timeskip ^__^ chan, felix, and minho will appear too!


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